Medical technologies
The research conducted by the medical technologies (MT) sector yields products assuring or restoring health and thus quality of life. To do such, these products incorporate a large number of technologies stemming from mechatronics, microsystems, ICT, photonics and optronics, materials engineering, pharmaceuticals and biotechnologies. This breadth of technologies is matched by that of the products and systems arising from this cross-disciplinary approach. Such trends as miniaturization and automation have produced MT’s ability to sustain its growth and pace of innovation.
Other trends imparting MT with its great potential are the global demographics and business developments affecting the health care sector, of which MT forms a central component. The result: MT is a huge and fast-growing world market: some EUR 200 billion a year. This figure is set to grow at a 6%-7% rate in the years to come.
There are three key reasons why Bavaria’s MT sector is optimally positioned to partake of this worldwide growth:
- Because its high-performing economy is comprised of a large number of companies at the forefront of technology and leading their markets
- Because its scientific community is broad-based and has a huge trove of knowhow
- Because its health care system is world-class and is based upon advanced infrastructure
Bavaria forms part of Germany’s MT sector, and that, in turn, is number two in the world—after that of the USA. Germany’s MT sector has a workforce totalling nearly 150,000. More than half of its sales stem from products which are younger than three years old.
Bavaria’s workforce—nearly 20,000—accounts for some 20% of the German MT total. These highly-qualified staff members turn out more than 60% of Germany’s electronics-based MT devices and some 30% of its products as a whole. Some 70% of the sales recorded by Bavaria’s MT sector stem from abroad.
The quality of Bavaria’s health care system is known around the world. The system's repute is attributable to the breadth and excellence of the health care provided, and to such patient-appealing factors as the large number of facilities attending to their wellness.
The system in facts and figures:
- 400 officially-certified full-care hospitals. These are staffed by 48,000 doctors and nearly 10,000 dentists.
- 341 facilities providing precautionary and post-hospital care and rehabilitation
- 53 high-ranked spas. Key fact: one third of Germany’s wellness-seekers sojourn at the state’s spas.
The sector shows a breadth matched by few in Europe. Its core is comprised of 250 companies. While most of these are SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises), the state is home to the headquarters and major operations of a number of global players, with this referring to their sales and including pharmaceuticals: Siemens Health Care, Baxter, Beckman Coulter, Fresenius Medical, GlaxoSmithKline, Roche, Viasys and General Electric. It maintains its European Research Center in Munich’s northern suburb of Garching.
The market-making products manufactured by these companies stem from their close working relationships with Bavaria’s scientific community in the areas of medical devices, imaging, data processing, minimally-invasive surgical methods, and regenerative medicine.
The reason why the world’s companies flock to work with Bavaria’s scientific institutes is their stock of MT innovations and applications. Many of these institutes form part of the state’s institutions of higher education:
- Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Center of Medical-Use Physics and Technology
- The Garching campus of TUM (Technische University Munich) und Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich, Central Institution for Medical Technologies (ZIMT), Biomedical Engineering Consortium, TUM’s degree program in medical technologies
- University of Regensburg, Telemedical Center
- University of Würzburg, with specialties in magneto-resonance imaging, biomedicine and related materials
- Universities of Applied Sciences in Munich, Nuremberg, Würzburg-Schweinfurt, Regensburg and Ansbach
Other institutes:
- DLR (Germany’s Aerospace Agency), Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics, Oberpfaffenhofen
- Linked with ZIMT and TUM, ITEM GmbH (Center for Innovation in Therapeutic Medical Technologies), Garching,
- Helmholtz Zentrum München - German Research Center for Environmental Health
- Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits (IIS), Erlangen
- Bayerisches Laserzentrum GmbH (BLZ—Bavarian Laser Center), Erlangen
- Fraunhofer project group for biomedical research, Regensburg (now being put together)
- Magnet-Resonance Bavaria. Now being put together, this research institute is linked with the University of Würzburg.
The state of Bavaria also provides support to a large number of research consortia. These are comprised of scientists from a wide variety of fields, and of companies.
These consortia include:
- BAVARIAN RESEARCH COOPERATION "CLIMATIC IMPACTS ON ECOSYSTEMS AND CLIMATIC ADAPTATION STRATEGIES" (FORKAST)
- BAVARIAN RESEARCH COOPERATION FOR ADULT NEURONAL STEM CELLS (FORNeurocell II)
- BAVARIAN RESEARCH COOPERATION FOR INFECTION PROTECTION BY MEANS OF NEW DIAGNOSTIC AND THERAPEUTIC METHODS (FORPROTECT)
- BAVARIAN RESEARCH COOPERATION FOR CELL-BASED REGENERATION OF THE MUSCULOSKELETAL SYSTEM IN OLD AGE (FORZEBRA)
Bavaria’s MT networks have been configured to foster the creation and utilization of chains of MT value added:
- Forum MedTech‘s 600 members use its platform and the information it supplies as the basis for the forging of inter-disciplinary networks
- BioMedTec Franconia is the network linking the Universities of Bayreuth, Erlangen-Nuremberg and Würzburg, and serving to support start-ups and the attracting of innovative companies to the region
Both start-ups and companies setting up shop in Bavaria profit from the attractive premises and state-of-technology equipment provided by the state’s centers of expertise and of incubation:
- IZMP MT incubation center in Erlangen
- IGZ Nuremberg-Fürth-Erlangen incubation center
- IGZ incubation center in Würzburg
- gate center of technology and incubation in Garching
The Erlangen-Nuremberg and Munich regions are among the world’s MT leaders. Regensburg and Würzburg are also regarded as being among the sector’s pacemakers.
- Leading-edge Medical Valley - Nuremberg Metropolitan Region, www.medical-valley-emn.de
- Munich’s hospitals and institutes (a number of both affiliated with the city’s universities) are world leaders in minimally-invasive and ICT-based processes, and in other areas of medical care and technologies.
- Regensburg is the hub of a network setting up telemedical links between university-run and other hospitals, and is the home of the Center for Applied Biomedicine.
- Research into biomaterials, implants and magneto-resonance imaging is conducted by a consortium comprised of the Universities of Erlangen-Nuremberg and Bayreuth – Würzburg.
This support complements the generous funding supplied for many years by dedicated technology development programs to MT R & D projects.
Further information
…is available in „Key Technologies in Bavaria“ . This database has full-length entries on the state’s MT companies.
Healthcare in Bavaria
