The annual life science company report for Stockholm-Uppsala 2103 has just been released. This report gives a snapshot and overview of the life science industry in Stockholm-Uppsala region, which encompass almost 60% of the Swedish life science companies.
In this year's report data from 2009-2011 are included and show the development of the industry over this period. Currently there are 586 life science companies in this region with at least one employee, employing 20 779 people and turning over SEK 141 billion. Overall, 66% of employees are involved in research & development and/or production, 28% in marketing & sales and 6% provides services.
The largest sub sector is pharmaceutical (53%) of which AstraZeneca employs 20% of the workforce, followed by Medtech and Biotech. In the region there are 14 large companies (>250 employees) accounting for over 50% of all the workforce. 64% of the companies are micro companies (1-10 employees), many focused on innovative technologies.
The global life science industry is undergoing major changes and tens of thousands of jobs have disappeared from the sector from 2000 to 2011. Reflecting global trends, there has been a continuous decline in employment in the Stockholm-Uppsala region, particularly in the pharmaceutical sub-sector. In total, the workforce in the region has decreased by –1618 people (-7.2%) between 2009-2011.
However, given that pharma is the largest sub-sector and heavily dominated by AstraZeneca and a few other large companies, this is not surprising. In fact, apart from the pharmaceutical sector, the remaining sectors have only minor decreases and the biotechnology sector has actually increased.
Overall, the report shows that there is healthy overall dynamics in the workforce. Roughly 12% of all employees change jobs within the sector annually and the majority stay in the region, indicating that the region has good capacity to retain competence.
In summary, the report shows that despite a reduction in the workforce in the life science sector in the past two years, there is a strong science base and research infrastructure already existing, a competence pool covering all fields of life science and a productive eco system for innovation.
Download the report.
All the companies in the report are also displayed in the searchable and scalable life science industry map.