Oulu – an international hub of Life Science

The solid high-tech expertise possessed in the Oulu region forms an exceptionally productive foundation for innovative health and wellness technology. The efficient co-operation between research and business operations has resulted in internationally distributed products and services. 

Life Science in Oulu:

• Approximately 180 companies representing this industry
• Turnover nearly EUR 300 million, growth rate nearly 40% over the past few years
• More than 2,000 employees
• Unique research material of people born in northern Finland in 1966 is also available for corporate use

Focus areas: 

• The ecosystem of health
• Preventing lifestyle diseases
• Comprehensive service concepts promoting health and wellness
• LifeScience devices
• Food safety
• Optomechatronics
• Platforms and applications for the pharmaceutical industry
• Manufacture of industrial biotechnology products.

Oulu-based companies strive to ensure a good quality of life even with the life expectancy continuously extending. Solutions are being sought for the prevention of diseases, improvement of processes in the pharmaceutical industry, and future diagnostics.
 
The brave integration of IT and nano applications in biotechnology has led to several significant breakthroughs, such as mini-sized electrodes for neuroscience and cardiac muscle research, a unique microbe cultivation platform and recombinant collagen production. Further examples of expertise manifested in Oulu include the process development and quality assurance of medicinal substances and the ADME research of pharmaceuticals. The most widely known application of wellness technology is probably the heart rate monitors that have been on the market since 1979. One of the latest applications is a genetic test intended for consumer use and originally developed in Oulu.

Food research is also strongly represented in Oulu, and the results of healthier nutrition development include the purest seed potato in the world. Another issue taken seriously in Oulu is the well-being of the environment. Combining biotechnology with environmental technology has resulted in new solutions for such fields as mining, environmental analytics, and purification of toxic substances. For example, the eTMP technology used in the pre-treatment of wood chips in the mechanical pulping process to generate energy-saving fibre properties has been developed in Oulu.

TUULA PALMÉN
Ph.D. Key Account Director, Life Sciences
tel. 050 461 7290
firstname.lastname@businessoulu.com