The 'Triple Helix' is central to a successful life science ecosystem. Consisting of industry, teaching hospitals and universities, the integration/interaction of these three institutions is essential for growth within the sector. According to the Times Higher Education 2021, the best European universities to study life sciences are University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, UCL, ETH Zurich, Imperial College London, Wageningen University, Karolinska Institute and LMU Munich.

However, Israel leads the way globally in terms of the level of R&D collaboration between university and industry, according to data from the Global Innovation Index. Switzerland, Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany mark the top five European markets.

Although Israel is comparatively smaller by population, it spends almost 5% of annual GDP on R&D expenditure. Israeli universities have established educational programmes and research centres in cutting-edge fields, such as the Center of Knowledge in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. This has subsequently attracted over €2bn venture capital investment in the sector over the last five years, to companies including Insightec, which develops ultrasound technology to treat oncology conditions, and drug discovery firm Gamida Cell, which develops cell therapies to target cancers. Interestingly, less than half of the patents obtained by investors are owned by Israeli companies, as multinationals including Google, Microsoft and Intel have acquired fast-growth Israeli companies in recent years.

Accelerate Cambridge is an example of an early-stage life science spinout which offers 10-week programmes, coaching, training and access to shared workspace. This helps to secure intellectual property rights, assisting in patent applications and leading seed investment rounds. In Zurich, the ETH Zurich spinout Covagen was acquired by Johnson and Johnson and develops therapeutics including to treat cancer.

There are outliers, however, despite France receiving over €3bn of venture capital investment in the life sciences sector over the last five years, the quality of university/ industry R&D collaboration is relatively low compared with competing European countries. France, home to pharma giants Sanofi and Servier, and Spain, home to Almirall and Grifols invested a combined €7bn in R&D funding during 2020, although stronger university-industry linkage will be required for these countries to compete on the world stage.

Given rising investor demand to gain exposure to the European life science sector, we anticipate increased levels of new development to facilitate life science growth and choosing the right science park operator is essential in delivering this.

_{Read the articles within Spotlight: Life Sciences – Trends & Outlook below.}