Healthcare Industries: a Powerful Innovative Edge

In Berlin and Brandenburg, 230 biotech companies, 300 medical technology businesses and approximately 20 pharmaceutical companies form the core of the Healthcare Industries cluster. They are joined by various clinics, medical-optic device manufacturers and many companies that use their products and services. Building on a strong industrial basis with a targeted innovation policy, the German Capital Region developed this efficient cluster with ultramodern jobs in companies that enjoy a leading position in Europe and are present on international markets.

One special feature of this cluster is its above-average R&D activities, excelling through their trans-regional networking, international relevance and pioneering innovation potential. Brandenburg boasts Germany’s highest density of R&D facilities. This unique scientific landscape gives rise to numerous start-ups and networks in the Healthcare Industries cluster. Every year, around 3,000 graduates from the life sciences and related disciplines leave the German Capital Region’s universities, which explains why there is such an excellent pool of qualified personnel and budding scientists in Berlin and Brandenburg.

Highly innovative and globally competitive products are developed not only for cardiovascular and oncological applications, but also in medical imaging, telemedicine, minimally invasive surgery and orthopaedic technology/implants.

Berlin-Brandenburg Center for Regenerative Therapies (BCRT)
Interdisciplinary teams involving physicians, scientists and engineers develop novel methods to boost the body’s own healing and regenerative powers, especially for the treatment of acute and chronic diseases of the muscles, the skeleton, the immune system and the cardiovascular system. The aim is to enable a recovery for a variety of diseases, for which there are only palliative treatments at present. For instance, the BCRT network conducts research into methods to make bone defects and muscle injuries heal more quickly.

The research activities focus on the following fields:

• Regenerative therapies
• Diseases of the immune system
• Diseases of the cardiovascular system
• Diseases of the muscles and the skeleton
• Development of biomaterials.

DiagnostikNet-BB
Members of this network are companies, institutes, hospital users and medical laboratories that join forces to develop and market novel or improved need-based in-vitro diagnostics. This network developed under the GRW guideline covers the entire value-added chain, thus offering customers the advantages of services from a single source.

Main objectives of the network:

• Development of diagnostics solutions
• Involvement of the users in product development
• Development of shared marketing and sales structures.

glyconet Berlin Brandenburg e.V.
The glyconet Berlin Brandenburg (glyconet BB) network currently comprises 20 members (12 research-based SMEs and eight research institutes). The strategic goal of the network is to develop innovative products and processes in the field of glycobiology and glycobiotechnology and to rapidly transfer them into the market. This is intended to strengthen economic growth in the region and support the creation of new jobs and the establishment of new interregional and international partnerships. The network’s administrative office is located at the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology in Potsdam-Golm.

Imaging Network Berlin (INB)
This network has been involved in imaging for oncology, neurology, cardiovascular disorders and gastro-intestinal diseases since 2006. Medical imaging can display and quantify molecular changes caused by the onset of diseases before morphological changes take place.
The INB network brings experts and users from science and industry together, thereby optimising use of the different resources. The network coordination lies with the medical technology department of Berlin Partner for Business and Technology (Berlin Partner für Wirtschaft und Technologie GmbH).
Now with members throughout Germany, the network is an interdisciplinary innovation platform for the exchange of experiences and information between specialists from the fields of medicine, biotechnology, nanotechnology, medical technology and information technology. It not only initiates and supports R&D projects, but also organises knowledge transfer seminars, workshops and meetings.

Initiative Gesundheitswirtschaft Brandenburg e. V. (IGW BB)
IGW BB was founded in 2009 and agitates for Healthcare Industries in Brandenburg. The Network understood itself as connector between sciences and economic, players from public administration and politics as well as health payer. Famous health resorts and clinics, excellence scientific institutes, innovative and efficient companies from the biotech-, medtech-, wellness- and nutritionsector as well as health payer are among the regional player.

Life Science Alliance Brandenburg-Berlin (LAB-B)
The Life Science Alliance Brandenburg-Berlin is a cooperation network, which is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy within the framework of the Central Innovation Programme for SMEs
The network consists of small and medium-sized enterprises, hospitals, universities/research facilities, associated partners in Germany and abroad as well as larger companies.
The network's focus is on medical technology and eHealth in the life sciences sector. The aim is to implement innovative ideas from the life science sector quickly into marketable products in order to improve medical care. The network helps here at different levels, for example by bringing together suitable partners for cooperation, support for funding applications or by finding suitable premises for companies.

Center for Molecular Diagnostics and Bioanalysis (ZMDB)
This key project under Berlin-Brandenburg’s joint innovation strategy is a platform for technology transfer as regards the development and production of innovative diagnostic methods. It is involved in the following fields:

• Basic research
• Clinical research
• Technology development
• Industrial applications.

Further Networks:

• bbb - Biotechnologieverbund Berlin-Brandenburg e.V.

Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg

Institute of Computer Science
Focus on: systems engineering; information and communication technology

Bachelor's degree course in Biotechnology
Focus on: nanobiotechnology, protein biochemistry, enzyme engineering, genome analysis, phototropic bioengineering, molecular biology.

Bachelor's degree course in Medical Informatics
Focus on: rehabilitation technology, biocompatible materials, biomechanics, lightweight medical products.

MHB Medizinische Hochschule Brandenburg Theodor Fontane

Private medical academia with a campus in Neuruppin and Brandenburg/Havel.

Focus on: medicine of aging

Clinics:
Ruppiner Kliniken
Klinikum Brandenburg
Immanuel Klinikum Bernau, Brandenburg Heart Center
Abteilung für Psychiatrie, Psychotherapie und Psychosomatik der Immanuel Klinik Rüdersdorf

Technische Hochschule Brandenburg

Degree course in Medical Informatics
Focus on: diagnostics using fluorescence spectroscopy; evaluation of medical signals (biosignal processing); artificial intelligence systems.

Technische Hochschule Wildau

Bachelor's degree course in Biosystems Engineering/Bioinformatics
Focus on: microengineering, cell culture engineering, computer science, process engineering, applications of systems engineering in biology.

Focus on: software development, telematics, e-business, applications of computer science in business and management, telecommunications, new media, decision support systems, electronics, instrument design.

Universität Potsdam

Institute of Biochemistry and Biology
Focus on: molecular biology, plant- and systembiology, ecology and evolution, proteinresearch and molecular physiology

Research group Bioinformatics
Focus on: the phylogenetic analysis of genetic groups, in particular myzostomida; development of the GOblet web server for the identification of DNA or protein sequences in terms of genetic ontology.

Research group of Biodiversity Research/ Systematic Botany
Focus on: the biology of populations of endangered species; the microevolution of invasive plant species; diffusion of plant species; relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functions.

Focus on: the development of catalytic antibodies for the splitting of urea and carbamate derivatives; the production of bi-specific antibodies for the development of immune assays; the production of recombinant antibodies for tumour diagnosis and therapy; interaction between immune cells and biomimetic synthetic surfaces.

Research group of Evolutionary Biology/Systematic Zoology
Focus on: molecular genetic methods, morphological studies, the simulation of virtual populations using genetic modelling, ecological and ethological field analysis, applications of genetics to nature conservation.

Research Group Genetics
Focus on: the development and optimisation of genome resources and processes for studying the formation of stomata and the function of brassinosteroids.

Research group of Life-science Materials
Focus on: tissue engineering, the production of absorber and support materials for apheresis and bio-hybrid organs, the development of multifunctional materials with biocompatibility, form memory and specific surface properties.

Research group of Molecular Biology
Focus on: the biophysical conditions of nutrient transport in plants; vegetable potassium channels of the TPK/KCO family; ion transport and Ca2+ dependent signal transduction processes.

Research group of Microbiology
Focus on: the influence of temporal, spatial and various physical and chemical factors on population growth; physiological activities (soil enzymes and respiration); the influence of various soil treatments on microorganisms.

Research group of Cell Biology
Focus on: the functional analysis of centrosome and microtubule-associated proteins of amoeboids; the identification, characterisation and interaction of new centrosomal proteins; understanding the molecular structure of the centrosome/nucleus association.

Europa Universität Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder)

Institute for Transcultural Health Sciences (IntraG)
Focus on: research and training in issues related to the health sciences in the context of the ongoing globalisation of medicine; relationships between medicine, culture, legislation and business.