Drawn from Healthcare & Life Sciences Review Denmark 2025, this selection captures the major forces now reshaping one of Europe’s most dynamic life science hubs. From Denmark’s bid to double the sector’s economic weight by 2030, to its sweeping “Health Closer to You” reform, biotech surge, clinical-trials strategy, and evolving access frameworks for advanced therapies, these stories chart a country using policy, data, and collaboration to punch far above its size.
The Bet to Double Denmark’s Life Science Power
Making Life Sciences Strategic
The super-sized contribution of the life sciences sector to Denmark’s national economy can hardly be overstated. With over 100,000 professionals currently engaged in biotech and pharmaceuticals across the country, Denmark already ranks as one of the European Union member states with the largest proportion of the population employed by the industry. Meanwhile tax revenues from more than 1500 homegrown and locally operative life science entities have doubled over the past decade, while it is now estimated that the nation’s pharmaceutical and medtech annual exports could be bringing in as much as DKK 350 billion (47 billion euros) by 2030. Little wonder, then, that successive Danish governments have been united in their determination to preserve, sustain, and future-proof the country’s competitive advantages in this domain.
Central to these efforts has been the historic unveiling in 2024 of a highly ambitious ‘Strategy for Life Science Towards 2030’ bringing together recommendations from a Life Science Council composed of representatives from industry, academia, patient groups, healthcare providers and employee organisations. “Developed as a joint exercise on the part of no fewer than four different ministries of state – namely those of Industry & Finance, Foreign Affairs, Interior & Health, and Higher Education & Science – the Strategy serves as a cross-cutting framework and blueprint for driving economic growth through innovation, while simultaneously fostering the creation of a coherent, robust and future-ready healthcare system for the benefit of patients,” explains Morten Bødskov, Minister for Industry, Business, and Financial Affairs. “Moreover, it sends a strong and unequivocal signal to the investor community that this is a country firmly committed to consolidating its position as a top-tier life science nation,” he elaborates.
Naturally such a move has been roundly applauded by industry insiders. “Denmark stands apart within Europe for its clear and unambiguous recognition of life sciences as a strategic industry, an approach that has translated into meaningful policy support,” enthuses Charl van Zyl, President and CEO of the iconic Danish specialty neuroscience outfit, Lundbeck. “Having a comprehensive policy framework like this in place not only provides incentives to attract the sort of world-class scientific talent that our industry requires to flourish, but also goes a long way towards cultivating an environment conducive to innovation and long-term investment,” he believes.
Defining A Practical Blueprint
“What’s remarkable about this very well-structured life science strategy is it goes beyond just mere vision or aspiration, and constitutes a detailed roadmap to 2030, complete with concrete and actionable goals that address the entire value chain from early-stage research to patient access,” concurs Montse Jansà, General Manager and Managing Director of German biopharma player, Merck.
Also noteworthy, has been the inclusiveness and all-encompassing reach of the strategy. “We believe this to represent a major step forward, because, for the first time, we see policymakers taking a holistic view of the entire life science ecosystem,” says Diana Arsovic Nielsen, Director of the Danish Life Science Cluster, noting that the strategy not only addresses the evolving development needs of innovative biopharma, but equally those of other industry segments whether that be generic drugmakers, medtech providers, or digital health designers.
“This very latest iteration of the nation’s life sciences planning marks a clear improvement in terms of recognising the medtech sector’s role and priorities,” agrees Mads Koch Hansen, Director of Medicoindustrien, Denmark’s association for medical device developers. “Unlike previous attempts at a nationwide strategy, which were more heavily weighted toward pharmaceutical interests, the current version is much more integrated in affording medtech a stronger voice, more commensurate to our contribution to local manufacturing, innovation and positive healthcare outcomes,” he observes.
“There is basically something valuable in it for everyone: companies of all sizes, not just early-stage or research-driven ventures. The government has made a concerted effort to develop a framework that supports a broad spectrum of industry players, and that is something we very much welcome because it should help nurture a fully-fledged enabling ecosystem that will be greater than the sum of its part and end up benefiting everyone,” believes Peter Halling of CEO and President of a homegrown drug developer, ALK, that has risen to become a global leader in allergy research and treatment.
A Full Spectrum Approach
What then, are the major strands of the strategy? For a start, promoting the production of next generation medicines and state-of-the-art medical technology is now designated a national priority. “This wasn’t certainly the case only five years ago. There used to be an ingrained perception that Denmark couldn’t be a production country, based on outdated comparisons to low-cost manufacturing. But pharmaceutical production is altogether different. It’s high-tech, capital-intensive, highly regulated, and built for the long term. Once you’ve made the investment, you don’t move it, and nowadays the political stakeholders properly appreciate these nuances,” explains Ida Sofie Jensen, CEO of the Danish Association of the Pharmaceutical Industry (Lif).
“There’s definitely rising political and commercial interest in bringing high-value life science manufacturing to Denmark and the strategy reflects this course correction. For instance, it contains provisions for a ‘red carpet’ initiative, which supports companies seeking to establish or expand manufacturing capacity. This envisages a one-stop-shop platform simplifying regulatory approvals and ensuring designated industrial zones are pre-equipped with infrastructure,” confirms Vanessa Vega Saenz, Director of Invest in Denmark.
“Our logic is to render it evermore simple and faster to move forward with infrastructural investments. We understand that speed and ease of doing business have become global competitive parameters for domestic and foreign manufacturers alike and are ready to do whatever we can to encourage these entities to deepen their in-country production footprints,” reasons Minister Morten Bødskov.
Meanwhile there is a concerted effort underway to further elevate Denmark’s medical research intensity and prowess in developing innovative therapies and healthcare technologies. “Our ambition is that Denmark should be among the top countries in Europe that create the most new, viable life science companies per million inhabitants, while simultaneously retaining our longstanding reputation as one of the go-to preferred destinations for clinical trials,” reveals Bødskov.
One envisaged way of accomplishing this is to identify superior mechanisms for translating the country’s unique healthcare data into ground-breaking research. “The strategy details a move towards centralising access to health data with plans in motion to establish a single point of contact and a national analytics platform for health data,” confides Vega Saenz. “This shall allow researchers and companies to access public datasets in a coordinated way, through both public and public-private frameworks,” she explains.
Notably conspicuous has also been the inclusion of access to medicine in the value chain. “In previous strategies, the focus always stopped at R&D and early development. Now, access, sales, and marketing are for the first time recognised as integral to the full lifecycle of innovation,” observes Ida Sofie Jensen. “This is absolutely vital because life sciences must be the bridge between scientific research and real-world patient benefit. It’s simply not sufficient to generate breakthrough discoveries if there aren’t well defined pathways for ensuring that patients can access those innovations,” she argues.
Maja Lassenius Kramp, General Manager of specialty women’s health player, Ferring Nordics, very much mirrors this sentiment. “Denmark has long shown itself to be a receptive environment for developing advanced therapies. However, the ability to translate scientific progress into real-world impact depends not only on the strength of innovation pipelines but on the frameworks that govern market access, reimbursement, and pricing as well,” she opines.
Kramp is therefore cheered to see new roles being ascribed to the national authorities and the central procurement agency for public hospitals, Amgros, with a view to enhancing such frameworks. “These developments can be fundamental to creating the sort of predictable, sustainable conditions where innovation can thrive,” she believes.
“The strategy has undoubtedly had the effect of broadening our focus by placing greater emphasis on the life science sector as a vital stakeholder,” concedes Nils Falk Bjerregaard, Director General of the Danish Medicines Agency (DKMA). “It has encouraged us to view our work not only through the lens of regulatory excellence but also as a proactive facilitator of innovation, a partner to healthcare systems and patients, and a contributor to national competitiveness. In this way, the strategy has sharpened our direction while reaffirming the foundational responsibilities that define the agency,” he recounts.
Ripe for Replication
Finally, the strategy explicitly commits the state to playing an active international role in solving global health challenges and supporting the export of Danish healthcare solutions. “This embracement of the international dimension applies to research, to hospital systems, and to industry and is especially sensible given prevailing geopolitical shifts,” thinks Jakob Nielsen, CEO of Healthcare Denmark, a non-profit public-private partnership promoting Danish healthcare solutions internationally.
“After all, as a small, open economy with life sciences now accounting for almost 25 percent of total exports, Denmark is deeply dependent on other countries, and risks finding its companies impacted when stability and trade become replaced by increased tensions between great powers, protectionism, and supply chains disruptions,” he reasons.
“The more the strategy gets implemented, the more it will establish a precedent for others in the region to follow, positioning Denmark not only as a leader in innovation but also as a replicable model for pragmatic, inclusive policy-making that supports a thriving, innovation-driven ecosystem,” predicts Merck’s Montse Jansà.
“Already we perceive other countries beginning to take notice, using it as a reference point for shaping their own approaches,” reflects Christof Bischoff, Country Director at AstraZeneca, noticing how the EU’s own emerging life science strategy is visibly shaped by Denmark’s determination to align industrial policy and healthcare innovation, while redefining what is possible though collective action and astute cross-sector collaboration.
“Compared with its neighbours, Denmark offers a particularly concrete model of supportive policy, and with the country recently assuming the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, the timing could well be perfect for sharing this model more broadly,” he concludes.
Shifting the Centre of Care: Inside Denmark’s Health Closer to You Reform
Public Health Reimagined
Denmark’s total health expenditure as a share of GDP has increased moderately over the past decade with the country spending 278 billion KKR (37.2 billion euros) in 2024, of which 83% was financed directly from government health schemes. Yet despite the country’s well-earned reputation for delivering high quality ‘cradle to grave’ universal healthcare that is largely free at the point of use, Danish policymakers recently embarked upon a radical reform of the nation’s public healthcare apparatus.
“Maintaining the status quo has frankly not been a realistic option, as our country is afflicted with many of the same healthcare challenges common across most OECD members: notably the rise of chronic illnesses, demographic shifts, workforce shortages, and exponential demand for healthcare services,” explains Jakob Nielsen, CEO of Healthcare Denmark, a non-profit public-private partnership promoting Danish healthcare solutions.
“Our aged 80+ population is set to proliferate over the coming years, while the number of younger people entering the workforce will simply not keep pace, which means we are forced to identify creative ways to continue delivering high-quality health services, but at greater scale and with fewer resources such as doctors and nurses,” elaborates Helene Probst, Health Director for Danish Regions, a body tasked with providing professional services and advisory to the political leadership of the country’s five regions.
Following the conclusions of numerous public enquires into the matter – notably those of the Resilience Commission charged with analysing the robustness of the health sector, and the Healthcare Structure Commission mandated to examine the structural sustainability – it was determined that Denmark had been focusing too heavily upon hospital-based care in a manner that could no longer be sustained in the years to come.
“Basically, the studies were indicating that over half the Danish population visits a hospital every year when many of those same services offered might be more efficiently delivered elsewhere: such as in primary and ambulatory care settings or even from within the home,” recalls Probst.
Care Proximity
Indeed, what has followed has been a concerted effort to future-proof and reorientate the country’s public healthcare by localizing care delivery as far as possible, optimizing resource allocation, and strengthening primary care capacity with a view to preventing unnecessary hospital admissions.
For a start, the acute care system has undergone massive consolidation with the number of acute hospitals reduced from 40 to 21, including the formation of six ‘super hospitals.’ Meanwhile, over 4 billion DKK (536.2 million euros) has been invested in the establishment of 25 new clinic-style entities nationwide equipped to provide specialized outpatient procedures from diagnostics to chronic care.
Søren Granhøj Pedersen, Managing Director for Denmark and Iceland at the American innovative drug developer, MSD sees a lot of sense in the reforms. “The shortage of general practitioners across the country is well recognised, and hospitals were becoming visibly stretched by growing patient demand. This dual challenge required a systemic response, and the country has been resolute in enacting structural reforms that properly prepare the country for higher volumes of older and chronic care patients,” he opines.
Naturally the changes will have profound implications for how pharma companies conduct business too. “While many of our treatments, especially in oncology, have traditionally been administered in specialised hospital settings, we are expecting to see a gradual transition toward more decentralised, primary care-oriented models and this will mean engaging with a new set of stakeholders,” he predicts.
Peter Jorgensen, Director of the Danish Generic and Biosimilar Medicines Industry Association (IGL) is even more forthright. “There’s a strong political ambition to move more treatment closer to people’s homes, switching some of the care that currently takes place in hospitals into the community and this shift could have a direct impact on how medicines are used and distributed,” he predicts. “For example, more products could become available at community pharmacies instead of being administered in hospital settings. That sounds simple, but actually introduces significant complexity, especially for biologics,” he warns.
Co-opting Medtech
It is perhaps in the medtech sector that the changes will be felt most keenly, however. “These reforms place medical technology developers in a really pivotal position,” affirms Mads Koch Hansen, Director of Medicoindustrien, the national association for medical device companies. “As clinical contact becomes more decentralised, technology becomes essential – not merely complementary – for maintaining safe, continuous care. Devices that enable remote monitoring, support self-management, and ensure timely clinical intervention are increasingly central to the success of this transition,” he explains.
Indeed, thanks to IoT-enabled wearable devices and remote monitoring solutions, individuals with chronic conditions can potentially manage their health from home, only requiring clinical input when alerts are triggered. Likewise, equipped with telemedicine and digital healthtech, post-surgical patients could conceivably recover in a safe, monitored environment outside hospital walls.
“We are already witnessing this in areas such as diabetes, where AI-driven sensor and pump systems allow families to manage the condition with greater confidence and less disruption to daily life. Parents no longer need to constantly monitor their child’s blood sugar; instead, smart alerts prompt them only when necessary. This kind of technological support enables a near-normal routine and significantly reduces the emotional and logistical burden of chronic disease,” confirms Hansen. “Similarly, in oncology, there is increasing potential for technology to address persistent effects of treatment, such as neuropathy or oedema, by enabling patients to manage symptoms more proactively at home,” he elucidates.
Many medtech developers are also spying fresh opportunities as healthcare integrators. “Companies like us have an unprecedented chance to shift from a predominantly product-centred approach to one that places patients and clinical decision-makers at the core of our thinking,” believes Francis Van Parys, President and CEO at Radiometer, a homegrown Danish multinational specializing in the design of markets solutions for blood sampling, blood gas analysis, transcutaneous monitoring, and immunoassay testing.
“At Radiometer, we perceive digital solutions not as adjuncts, but as integral to how the country can respond to these challenges. Moreover, unlike hardware, digital platforms offer the ability to scale quickly and deliver differentiated value to customers in ways that transcend traditional instrumentation,” affirms Van Parys.
Building Integrated Pathways
Certainly, care integration is high on the agenda of Denmark’s healthcare reformers. “For emergencies like a heart attack or stroke, coordinated pathways are in place that ensure patients can move swiftly and efficiently through the layers of the healthcare system. However, the picture is quite different when we look at care for elderly patients with chronic diseases and multi-morbidities,” details Danish Regions’ Helene Probst.
“Their care tends to be fragmented. It’s not so much that they lack access to professionals, in fact, they see the general practitioner, emergency nurses, paramedics, hospital staff, and potentially many other stakeholders, but there is extremely little coordination across these touchpoints. The ambition of the reform is precisely to change that: ensuring that one hand knows what the other is doing, and that public health can be delivered in a joined-up way along a seamless care continuum,” she asserts.
Indeed, since fall 2022, so-called health clusters have been in operation tasked with enhancing collaboration across hospitals and primary and local care, especially for older people and those with chronic conditions and mental health needs.
Moreover, one of the more strategic aspects of the reform process has been the creation of health councils as standing committees under the regional authorities that include politicians from both regional and municipal levels. They shall each be responsible for producing a local primary healthcare plan tailored to local population needs that is simultaneously aligned with national and regional policies. “What we’re striving for is a change of mentality in which decision makers embrace a population health approach. The health system, and particularly doctors, must move from focusing solely on the individual in front of them to also thinking about the broader needs of the community they serve,” urges Probst.
Underpinning all of that will be greater dependence on big data to make precise and well-informed decisions. Presently, Denmark’s healthcare apparatus enjoys a strong digital infrastructure, such as the centralised electronic health record, and extensive patient data collection at the hospital level. However, this mine of information is often underutilized and its communication between sectors remains underdeveloped.
Smarter Resource Allocation
A further consequence of the structural reconfiguration and uptake in data-informed decision making has been an ongoing re-evaluation of how the country’s healthcare resources should best be allocated. “When it comes to procurement, there has been a definite move away from a two-sector view of healthcare towards a more unified system,” notes Flemming Sonne CEO of Amgros, the state-owned body responsible for purchasing medicines, and certain medical devices such as hearing aids, on behalf of the public health apparatus.
“In the future, instead of differentiating between the hospital, primary care, and even private sectors, we hope to be able to support access wherever patients are treated. I expect our role in procurement and negotiation will increasingly extend across the whole care pathway,” he forecasts.
Meanwhile, a new Danish Health Prioritization Council, born out of what was previously the Danish Health Technology Council, is expected to play a lead role in guiding future resource allocation across the healthcare system, and the pharma and medtech industries alike have high hopes for its future impact.”
“While its full mandate is not yet defined, we are very much hoping that the new Prioritization Council will adopt a forward-looking view that recognises prevention not simply as a cost to be managed, but rather as a strategic investment in system sustainability,” confides MSD’s Søren Granhøj Pedersen. “Today, the benefits of prevention are often distributed unevenly across stakeholders, leading to incentive misalignments that hinder adoption. A more holistic and integrated prioritisation model would seriously help address this gap and bring prevention closer to the centre of healthcare planning,” he argues.
Pedersen identifies significant scope for supporting the reform’s goals, particularly through the preventative potential of vaccines, so long as the requisite financing can be secured. HPV vaccination, for example, helps prevent cancers before they ever enter clinical pathways, while pneumococcal vaccination could significantly reduce the approximately 29,000 hospital admissions Denmark sees each year for pneumococcal disease. “These are not just reductions in hospital visits, they represent patients who never enter the system, and therefore easing pressure at every level. Emphasizing prevention would align closely with the reform’s aim of moving care upstream while simultaneously unlocking long term value gains,” he insists.
“A key priority moving forward must be a shift from procurement based solely on price to one grounded in long-term value,” concurs Medicoindustrien Mads Koch Handsen. “While many purchasing decisions still default to the lowest-cost option, this approach fails to recognise the broader benefits that innovative technologies can deliver over time. A slightly higher initial investment often translates into improved outcomes for patients, more efficient healthcare delivery, and ultimately, greater societal benefit,” he notes.
Public Health Paragon
What is for certain is that Denmark’s neighbours will be keenly watching the reform’s progress. “There is growing international interest in Denmark, particularly because of our proven ability to achieve high-quality healthcare outcomes at comparatively moderate cost,” concedes Jakob Nielsen of Healthcare Denmark, who points out that in Newsweek’s latest ranking of the top 100 hospitals globally, two Danish public hospitals made the top 20 with Aarhus University Hospital ranked number six and Rigshospitalet in 19th place. “This is remarkable given our small population of six million and healthcare expenditure hovering around 10 percent of GDP. It demonstrates that we manage to deliver a lot of value for the investment,” he contends.
Especially right now, with its willingness to be a first mover in pioneering a future-fit public healthcare apparatus of tomorrow, “Denmark can credibly be regards as a sort of healthcare research studio or case study, not necessarily to be copied wholesale, but certainly to be learned from and adapted,” he reasons.
Booming Biotech
When it comes to Denmark’s flourishing local biotech scene, the country is again clearly punching far above its weight. The EU member state has already managed to muster world-class expertise in areas like peptide chemistry and metabolic disorders, anchored by the success stories of homegrown entities that made it big including Zealand Pharma, Genmab, and Novo Nordisk, and currently no fewer than eight of the companies in the ‘Copenhagen 25’ stock market index constitute life science outfits.
Such success can partly be attributed to Denmark’s highly sophisticated, multifaceted, and well-rounded enabling ecosystem. “Denmark offers a unique and cohesive environment for innovation, built upon a high level of trust among stakeholders, a unified public healthcare system, as well as a compact scale that renders the country a perfect living laboratory for budding life science players to test, refine, and adapt new health solutions in a system that is at once both responsive and collaborative,” thinks Diana Arsovic Nielsen, Director of the Danish Life Science Cluster, a 2020 national initiative comprising hubs in Copenhagen, Aarhus, Odense and Aalborg that strives to catalyse innovation, connect partners, and foster knowledge environments.
Jewel in the crown of that enabling landscape sits the so-called ‘Medicon Valley,’ one of Europe’s most dynamic life science hubs, which manages to unite a well-forged industrial base with the world-class academic research and clinical capabilities of University College Copenhagen and Rigshospitalet respectively, while simultaneously incorporating a transnational dimension by stretching into the south-western part of neighbouring Sweden.
“The fortitude of Medicon Valley lies in what we call the ‘triple helix’ collaboration between hospitals, private companies, and academia. This model is rare and sets us apart from other major life sciences hubs in Europe. While other regions may excel in one or two areas, the combination of these three strong pillars is truly our unique selling point,” insists Anette Steenberg, CEO of the Medicon Valley Alliance.
Support Levers
Also impactful has been the Danish state’s increasingly proactive efforts to support fledgling biotechs. “Political awareness of biotechnology’s importance has increased substantially, with successive governments recognising the intrinsic importance of university spin offs and start-ups to upping the country’s life science innovation intensity,” perceives Hans Schambye, Chairman of the biotech trade association, DANSK BIOTEK, and CEO of Galecto, which develops small molecules for the treatment of cancer and severe liver disease.
“For instance, the establishment of a dedicated BioInnovation Institute (BII) in 2021 as a spin-off from the Novo Nordisk Foundation has served to dramatically simplify company formation and early-stage development compared to when I started out on my first entrepreneurial ventures,” he recalls, noting “that the institute provides entrepreneurial training, and access to expertise that would otherwise be extremely difficult to obtain independently.”
Certainly, the levers of support available to young and upcoming Danish biotechs have never been greater and more numerous. One major focus of the BII has been the development of physical infrastructure to support the growing pipeline of start-ups, with the identification of dedicated laboratory and scale-up spaces in Copenhagen providing a concrete response to the need for specialised facilities. Promising life science start-ups can therefore benefit from the use of fully equipped laboratory facilities, enabling them to incubate and scale their operations within a collaborative ecosystem.
Concurrently, the Finance Ministry has committed to reforming tax policies that had unintentionally penalised entrepreneurs by taxing unrealised gains before start-ups had secured external investment. Meanwhile a patent voucher scheme, which provides subsidies to SMEs for the costs associated with a patenting process, is set to be further strengthened.
“Our focus is very much upon improving the rate at which that knowledge becomes innovation,” confirms Jens Nielsen, the CEO of BII. “One of our key performance indicators is the number of start-ups created relative to the volume of academic publications, a metric that allows us to benchmark ourselves against leading ecosystems such as Boston, Switzerland, and the UK’s so-called Golden Triangle, which comprises the universities and biotech clusters around Oxford, Cambridge, and London. This helps us assess how effectively we are bridging the gap between research and entrepreneurship,” he details.
Nor should anyone overlook the myriad of other active contributions iconic Danish homegrown champions are making via their foundations to nurture and sustain early-stage innovation. “Denmark’s ultimate aspiration is to fashion an innovation cluster comparable to Boston’s Kendall Square and already we can see this beginning to take shape. With strong backing from foundations such as the Lundbeck Foundation and the Novo Nordisk Foundation, this vision includes fostering an open collaboration environment that cultivates academic spinouts, venture capital, and industrial growth,” posits Charl van Zyl, CEO of Lundbeck.
“One notable example of this in action has been the formation of a partnership with NVIDIA to establish a quantum and AI-powered computing platform aimed at tackling complex areas of drug discovery, particularly where traditional methods have proven insufficient,” he adds.
Financing Conundrum
Yet, although Denmark can legitimately claim both a world-class academic research base and well-rounded pharmaceutical and health tech industry, the journey from discovery to commercialisation undertaken by homespun biotechs continues to prove highly challenging due to an obvious lack of breadth and depth in the local capital markets.
“Capital is often the defining hurdle for early-stage life science Danish start-ups, not at the point of formation where the ecosystem is robust, but when companies reach the stage where significant financing is required to scale,” acknowledges the BII’s Jens Nielsen. “We recognised early on that our impact would be limited unless our portfolio companies could successfully raise follow-on investment so trying to remedy this gap continues to be a centrepiece of our approach,” he says.
“Where Denmark, and Europe more broadly, falls short is in the lack of firepower within the funding ecosystem. The science may be there, but the capital base remains thin, especially from institutional investors. Too few pension funds, insurance groups, or sovereign vehicles allocate meaningful capital to venture, and even less to life sciences. Allocations as low as one percent are still common,” muses Rémi Droller, Managing Partner at the specialist healthcare orientated Paris-headquartered venture capital group, Kurma Partners.
“As a consequence, Danish life science entrepreneurs remain overly reliant on US crossover investors for later-stage financing, and many promising companies are pushed to list on Nasdaq to access growth capital and visibility,” he observes.
Droller, whose group is recognised for having been instrumental in co-leading the Series B investment in Danish success story Zealand Pharma in 2006, gives the salutary lesson of another once highly touted local player, Orphazyme, that had been developing treatments for rare neurological diseases.
“While their lead compound, arimoclomol, was eventually approved in the US as Miplyffa for Niemann-Pick type C in 2024, they sadly proved unable to scale and generate financial returns despite delivering real therapeutic value to patients,” he recalls, demonstrating how the lack of available funding can compromise even highly scientifically sound ventures.
“With the exception of the Nasdaq in the United States, few exchanges offer the depth, sophistication, or consistency needed to support biotech companies over time,” Droller believes. “Too often, European life science start-ups, Danish biotech included, go public prematurely on local exchanges where retail investors dominate and where there is limited understanding of biotech fundamentals. This can lead to severe volatility and misalignment, as investor expectations are shaped by metrics like EBITDA, wholly irrelevant in the context of pre-commercial science-driven companies,” he affirms.
Ian Laquian, CEO of Kariya Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology company supported by the BII and Innovation Fund Denmark dedicated to developing innovative disease modifying agents to treat neurodegenerative diseases, agrees that the prevailing funding ecosystem is often just not fit for purpose anymore. “The local venture capital landscape has evolved toward platform companies and substantial capital deployments, so when we were discussing funding requirements of EUR 5-10 million, many tier-one venture capitalists indicated minimum deployment thresholds of EUR 20 million or more which would have created a fundamental mismatch for the capabilities of single-asset entity like us,” he remembers. “Personally, I would love now to see the pendulum swing back our way, with greater recognition and support for the little guys,” he adds.
Conscious of these frailties, there has been a concerted effort within Denmark to try and smooth the path to commercialization through the provision of more appropriate financing vehicles. The BII, for instance, has been setting up structures designed to guide fledgling biotechs to a stage where they can successfully start to attract external venture capital. “We have started to provide initial financing in the form of convertible debt, an approach that avoids setting premature valuations at this nascent stage. Once companies raise their first external funding round, our investment converts into equity based on the valuation established by third-party investors,” details Nielsen.
To date, they have supported 120 start-ups, with approximately two-thirds focused on therapeutics and health tech solutions. “Much of our portfolio lies within the traditional domain of red biotechnology, including companies developing new pharmaceutical candidates across oncology, central nervous system (CNS) disorders, metabolic diseases, and obesity. Through this work, we aim to unlock the commercial and clinical potential of cutting-edge science and build a foundation for the next generation of innovation-led ventures,” he confirms.
Without a doubt, the BII has successfully managed to elicit the creation of a centralised, credible entry point for early-stage investment within Denmark. This has helped attract significantly greater international capital, with companies supported by BII collectively raising over EUR 850 million to date, close to 90 percent of which has come from external sources.
Kurma, for their part, have launched the Kurma Growth Opportunities Fund. This fund invests across both verticals, targeting companies that have reached key inflection points, typically clinical proof of concept (Phase 1B or 2A) for biopharma, or commercial readiness in diagnostics and digital health. “It also serves as a crossover vehicle, with the flexibility to participate in IPOs, and is designed to reinvest in companies already backed by our earlier funds, enabling us to accompany entrepreneurs over the full arc of their growth,” explains Droller.
Many market insiders believe, however, that far more support will be required to make a real difference in outlook for Denmark’s next generation of innovative drug and medical device discoveries. “Everyone tends to talk about the fabulous regulatory frameworks and business conditions in places like Boston, but the truth of the matter is that the primary American advantage is simply capital access,” insists Galecto’s Hans Schambye. “In my strong opinion, America does not necessarily represent a vastly more efficient business environment; it simply provides superior financing access, and that is the real and unshakable difference between their scenario and ours,” he contends.
Reality Bites
Peter Halling, CEO and President of the iconic Danish allergy speciality company ALK remains philosophical about Danish biotech’s future trajectory. “While a handful of homegrown players like Zealand Pharma and Genmab have defied the odds by evolving into integrated global players, one has to accept that this remains the exception rather than the norm,” he argues.
“In reality, biotech continues to function as the innovation engine of the pharmaceutical industry, with most value creation occurring through asset progression to late clinical stages and subsequent partnering or M&A. Under the prevailing conditions, innovation, once proven, will logically migrate into the portfolios of large US or Swiss pharmaceutical players and , while this might be seen as regrettable in terms of scaling local champions, it simply reflects the dominant structure of our industry,” he evaluates.
Likewise, Jens Nielsen urges stakeholders to reconsider the dynamics at play. “Relocation, in my opinon, is not necessarily the drawback that many people seem to think it is,” he argues. “it’s often a strategic necessity, especially when entering global markets like the US. What matters is that many of these companies maintain a Danish footprint while expanding their international presence. In the therapeutic space, it is common for early-stage biotechs to be acquired during Phase I or II of clinical development, providing both investors with a return and larger companies with the pipeline innovation they increasingly depend on. This model works, and while it may not lead to fully integrated Danish pharma companies selling products independently, it can trigger a broader dynamic: one in which international firms begin to anchor R&D capabilities in Denmark following strategic acquisitions,” he conjectures.
Orbis Medicines which is positioned to become the definitive orally available macrocycle platform, enabling pharmaceutical partners to develop oral biologics across diverse therapeutic areas provides a good example of a Danish entity that has followed a hybrid approach of seeking American capital but continued to anchor its R&D operations within its home market.
“In our experience, we found that long-term scaling necessitated a dual-footprint strategy. Presently, most Danish biotechnology companies require US capital market access for later-stage financing and eventual public market listing, as NASDAQ remains the primary global biotechnology capital market. Our strategic approach has therefore involved conducting substantial R&D in Denmark while establishing US subsidiary operations to access capital markets and pharmaceutical industry networks. This model enables us to leverage Denmark’s research excellence while securing full access to global capital and commercial opportunities,” reasons the company’s CEO ,Morten Graugaard.
Where next, then, for Denmarks budding biotech scene? “I’m extremely optimistic for a bright future for Danish biotech, but I do think it helps to be pragmatic,” asserts Lundbeck’s Charl van Zyl. “With a population of six million, Denmark cannot operate in isolation. I believe we need a coordinated, pan-European approach to life sciences development. Instead of each country attempting to build its own version of Kendall Square, we should concentrate resources in recognised hubs of excellence, whether in Copenhagen, Zurich, Cambridge, or Munich. Europe must compete not through duplication, but through collaboration, scale, and strategic specialisation,” he argues.
Jens Nielsen, very much mirrors this sentiment. “Our future lies in playing to our strengths,” he agrees. “Although Denmark sees strong activity in oncology, we would not claim it as a national stronghold compared to regions with more established clinical or research depth in the field. There are, however, segments – such as enzymes, CNS research or metabolic disease – where our country is really at the pioneering vanguard and leading the way. A differentiated, strengths-based model, grounded in complementarity rather than duplication, will enable us to harness our full potential,” he concludes.
Denmark: Medical R&D Outlier
Not only can Denmark lay claim to some major life science inventions – from the design of the world’s first ever insulin pen and disposable ostomy pouch to breakthroughs in fundamental discovery such as the development of the Gram Stain as an essential methodology for classifying bacteria – but it also ranks as one of the most R&D-intensive countries on the planet courtesy of its more than a century and a half year old agricultural heritage.
Indeed, last year, locally operative pharma and medtech firms expended over DKK 16 billion on research and development, equating to approximately one third of the Danish business community’s entire R&D investments. Meanwhile, the country placed number two within Europe, second only to Switzerland, for the volume of scientific publications registered per 1000 inhabitants of the population.
It should therefore come as little surprise that Denmark has long been regarded as a hospitable home for drug development and medical device companies’ scientific operations. Reproductive medicine and women’s health speciality firm, Ferring serves as a case in point. “We selected Denmark as the most appropriate site for our International PharmaScience Centre, our largest global R&D hub, covering the entire value chain: from early discovery and pre-clinical development to late-stage clinical trials, regulatory lifecycle management, and post-patent follow-up,” recounts the Swiss company’s General Manager for the Nordic, Maja Lassenius Kramp. “This is because we felt that the Demark offers a uniquely fertile ecosystem for innovation, supported by world-class academic institutions, strong public-private partnerships, and a deeply collaborative mindset that drives progress.”
“When paired with the country’s strong academic institutions, thriving biotech community, and advanced digital infrastructure, it allows us to conduct research that is both scientifically rigorous and socially relevant,” she elaborates.
Meanwhile, much the same calculus has been made by homegrown innovators as well. “From our origins as the inventor of the world’s first self-inflating resuscitator bag in 1956 to becoming a global leader in single-use endoscopy, we have always anchored the majority of our R&D activity within our home market of Denmark, where we interact closely with academic partners and hospitals to advance our pipeline,” confides Britt Meelby Jensen, CEO of the iconic Danish medical device developer, Ambu. “We find the country’s highly educated workforce, leading universities, and close-knit collaboration between public and private institutions to be vitally important to the performance of our business,” she adds.
Clinical Trials Powerhouse
One area where the country has undoubtedly managed to cultivate something of a competitive advantage is as a preferred clinical trials destination with Denmark more often than not boasting the highest volume of trials per million residents in the entirety of the European Union.
“Thanks to long-standing efforts on the part of the government to enhance the regulatory framework and a rather unique healthcare infrastructure and contextual setting Denmark’s clinical research capabilities prove highly appealing to foreign investors, and the majority of growth in this area is indeed driven by foreign firms,” observes Vanessa Vega Saenz, Director of Invest in Denmark.
“For instance, the fact that elevated levels of public trust result in a strong willingness among Danish citizens to participate in trials serves as an important differentiating factor that is highly appreciated abroad where it can often prove challenging to recruit the desired number of patients,” she continues
Certainly, international interest in locally hosted studies shows little sign of abating even in an era of next generation biologics and advanced therapeutic products (ATPs) that are less well suited to traditional clinical trial sequences. “With around 80 trials currently active or launching in Denmark, we are the presently ranked the most engaged sponsor in the country and, while trial activity across the continent has undergone something of a decline, this is one of the countries where we are actually looking to buck the trend and further expand our study presence,” concedes Christof Bischoff, Country Director at AstraZeneca.
Boehringer Ingelheim too has been ramping up its in-country clinical trial footprint. “Our activity has intensified from 19 studies back in 2021 to over 33 active trials today. These span all our core therapeutic areas of cardio-renal-metabolic (CRM) diseases and interstitial lung disease (ILD), cancer, and ophthalmology and we expect to initiate more than 10 new Phase II and III studies in the next 12 to 18 months demonstrating the sheer depth of our engagement and the scale of our ambition,” confides Steve Wright, the company’s General Manager and Head of Human Pharma for Denmark and Norway.
Sustaining Competitiveness
In its bid to preserve Denmark’s allure as a top clinical trials destination, the Danish government has been constantly on the lookout for ways to further fine tune the country’s offering. “There is a strong political consensus in Denmark around the value of locally conducted clinical research, and this has resulted in important initiatives like the formation of Trial Nation, a public-private partnership which acts as a streamlined, single point of entry for clinical trials nationwide,” observes Bischoff.
“Our mission is essentially to increase in-country investments into the clinical trials space by acting as a one-stop shop for companies and researchers looking to identify suitable sites and patients. Acting as a neutral facilitator and representing the full spectrum of stakeholders — from hospital owners, government ministries, and patient organisations, to clinicians and industry — we facilitate access to a nationally coordinated clinical trial infrastructure. Moreover, we proactively try to enhance operational framework conditions and remove any bumps on the road that might hinder trial execution,” explains Marianne Pilgaard, Trial Nation’s CEO.
The benefits of having such levels of coordination in place have certainly not been lost on some multinational drug developers. “The combination of a collaborative ecosystem and a high degree of centralization and uniformity delivers distinct advantages. “For example, when we launched our most recent innovation, a treatment for metastatic urothelial carcinoma, we were able to involve all the relevant hospitals nationwide in the clinical trial. Achieving this kind of coordinated participation across an entire country is rare and something we very much appreciate,” points out Montse Jansà, Managing Director of Merck’s local affiliate.
Meanwhile Trial Nation’s contribution includes initiatives to ensure that Demark remains ahead of the game when it comes to new trial formats. “Since 2022, we have been at the forefront of a major project focused on decentralised clinical trials. This model brings some or all aspects of a trial closer to the patient. Whether that means data collection, treatment, or communication, the goal is to make the entire process more accessible and patient centred,” mentions Pilgaard.
A raft of fresh tax breaks are also soon to be introduced with the Danish government promising to increase the cap on tax credits for R&D expenditure from DKK 25 million to DKK 35 million, thus allowing life science companies to claim the tax value of losses arising from R&D expenditures of up to DKK 35 million annually.
Some aspects still remain a work in progress however. “There is general recognition that ethics committees have become something of a bottleneck due to capacity constraints and, as they are the entry point for most clinical research in Denmark, can sometimes lead to unnecessary delays,” recounts Ida Sofie Jensen CEO, The Danish Association of the Pharmaceutical Industry (Lif), though she points out that the recently unveiled Life Science Strategy 2030 contains provisions to resolve this.
“By advancing AI integration, risk-based assessments, and cross-border harmonisation, we are working towards redefining ethical oversight. We are well aware that the existing one-size-fits-all methodology represents an inefficient allocation of resources, consuming valuable time on routine compliance reviews rather than focusing on substantive ethical considerations,” admits Helle Harder, Head of the Science & Ethics Division at the Danish National Centre for Ethics.
“Adopting a differentiated, risk-based approach will eliminate the current disconnect where experienced sponsors question extensive reviews for routine applications they have successfully completed multiple times previously. Simple applications following established precedents would receive expedited processing, whilst novel, complex, or controversial protocols would undergo comprehensive review. And for multinational trials, it will enable us to guarantee a maximum fourteen-day processing time,” she anticipates.
Medtech Innovation
One noticeable shortcoming with the Danish framework relates to clinical studies of medical technologies, however. “Clinical trials involving both medicinal products and medical devices often sit at the intersection of different regulations, creating uncertainty and, at times, contradictory guidance for researchers so this aspect still needs to be addressed,” concedes Nils Falk Bjerregaard, Director General of the Danish Medicines Agency (DKMA).
“Moreover, the current version of the Medical Device Regulation presents real challenges particularly for small and mid-size medtech companies because there is a mismatch between their developmental stage and the heavy administrative burden imposed by regulation,” points out Trial Nation’s Marianne Pilgaard.
“The regulatory fees required place a disproportionate burden on smaller players, even though larger pharmaceutical companies may absorb these costs with relative ease,” laments Mads Koch Hansen, Director of Medicoindustrien, the Danish association for med device developers, though he remains optimistic that the issue will be revisited as part of the new life science strategy, which explicitly recognises the medtech and healthtech segments as strategically vital components of the life science value chain.
“Medtech is Denmark is largely built around small and medium-sized enterprises, while pharma, by contrast, tends to be dominated by major multinationals, often through consolidation. And while medtech trials are typically smaller in scale than pharmaceutical ones – owing to the nature of the technologies involved and the size of the companies – this does not diminish their clinical relevance. Devices often require surgical intervention or are implanted directly into the body, making large-scale studies impractical, yet the impact of the results is equally significant,” opines Hansen.
RWE Generation
Denmark’s distinctive appeal, meanwhile, stretches beyond the formal clinical trials process and also encompasses the gathering of real-world evidence, a characteristic that augers well in an age when complex cell and gene therapies are increasingly the next frontier of medical science.
“Denmark enjoys of some of the best health data in the world thanks to the CPR system: a lifelong personal registry that links extensive healthcare records with disease-specific registries and more than 500 biobanks, alongside a tradition of registering the entire population from embryo to grave,” explains Vanessa Saenz.
“The country’s digital infrastructure, national registries, and access to high-quality data are incredibly advanced and go a long way towards facilitating epidemiological and pharmaceutical research which is extremely useful as we view real-world evidence as an increasingly important component of modern healthcare,” agrees Merck’s Montse Jansà.
“While clinical trials might provide rigorously controlled insights, they’re often limited in scope. Real-world data, on the other hand, captures outcomes across large, diverse patient groups, giving us a much clearer picture of how treatments perform in everyday practice. This not only boosts clinical confidence but also informs new indications and supports broader, evidence-based decision-making,” she reasons.
Søren Granhøj Pedersen, Managing Director of MSD for Denmark and Iceland, very much concurs. “The country’s infrastructure for data collection is both sophisticated and reliable. Institutions including comprehensive patient registries and advanced biobanks enable the generation of meaningful real-world evidence at unprecedented scale. All together, these factors make Denmark not only an attractive site for conventional clinical trials, but also a strategic investment location and partner for long-term scientific collaboration,” he concludes.
Dynamic Market, Sound Fundamentals
Despite its diminutive size, Denmark boasts a world-renowned healthcare and life science industry containing both household pharma giants as well as a robust network of academia, a host of niche service providers, and a growing throng of biotech start-ups. And with life science exports surpassing EUR 23 billion last year and surging at a rate of 8% per annum, the tiny Nordic nation continues to consolidate its position a popular destination for foreign direct investment.
“Life sciences represents by far and away one of Denmark’s most dynamic and productive sectors. From a macroeconomic standpoint, it generates more turnover annually than any other sector in the country, outpacing other industries not just in growth but also value-add and productivity per employee, and enticing in FDI of over 17.8 billion DKK each year,” observes Vanessa Vega Saenz, Director of Invest in Denmark.
And, with the domestic pharma market is currently valued at around USD 4 billion and registering a solidly reliable, albeit unspectacular CAGR of 3.3% driven by an increase in chronic illness and corresponding rise in prescription drug sales, Denmark offers not insignificant opportunities in the retail space as well.
What originator drug developers especially appreciate, meanwhile, is the country’s longstanding receptiveness to innovative medicine and willingness on the part of the authorities to often go the extra mile in facilitating patient access to next generation, breakthrough therapies.
“In general, Denmark offers a remarkably well-structured environment for life science innovation, where access to novel therapies is not only prioritised by government but supported by a national agenda that is at once both strategic and inclusive,” opines Steve Wright, General Manager and Head of Human Pharma for Denmark & Norway at Boehringer Ingelheim. “Among the more recent developments, has been the introduction of chronic care packages: a highly promising initiative that looks set to do much to strengthen long-term patient access,” he adds.
Ida Sofie Jensen, CEO of Lif, the national association for R&D-driven drug developers acknowledges that Denmark’s policy makers properly understand the value of promoting innovation in medical science and tend to be highly receptive to schemes and proposals that might further support the industry. “The incumbent administration has even committed to establishing a Healthcare Innovation Index that should provide an overview of which new treatment types and technologies are actually being accessed in the system. The goal being to precisely track invention, access, and the speed at which new medicines are adopted, with a view to ensuring continual progress,” she reveals.
Value-Based Access
That’s not to imply, however, that there isn’t still ample scope for further improvements. “Although the policy environment signals a very strong positive intent, sometimes the execution falls short and the political goodwill is not always reflected in the actual speedy uptake of new medicines,” notes Christof Bischoff, Country Director at AstraZeneca Denmark who points out that, on certain counts, the country’s performance according to EFPIA’s Waiting to Access Innovative Therapies (W.A.I.T.) indicator even registers a slight decline in recent years. “This is certainly no time for complacency because, when a market leads in clinical research but starts to lag in access, it can quickly find itself in a spiral of losing momentum,” he warns.
The main bone of contention appears to relate to the conditional nature of access for some of the most advanced and cutting-edge therapies whereby reimbursement is currently limited to specific schemes or patient cohorts rather than being universal and unconditional.
“Although we are often held up as poster child for being a country with strong, well-financed, and effective public health infrastructure, our resources, like those of any system, are of course finite,” reminds Birgitte Klindt Poulsen, Chairman of the Danish Medicines Council. “We must therefore take seriously our responsibility to guide resource allocation in a way that delivers the greatest value across disease areas and care levels.”
“As a Council, we consider ourselves not merely as assessors of medicines, but as contributors to a more equitable and sustainable model of healthcare delivery, one that serves patients both efficiently and fairly. And while speed is important, decisions must always remain firmly grounded in a thorough assessment of efficacy, safety, and cost-effectiveness,” she affirms.
For this reason, an intricate and finely balanced apparatus has been established to ensure value-based access to innovation. “Collaboration plays a critical role in determining how new products should be integrated into treatment guidelines. Unlike in many other markets, over here we possess a structured, national process whereby a centralized Hospital Purchasing Agency, Amgros, handles the price negotiations for new products, while the Danish Medicines Council assesses their clinical value and decides on their place in treatment paradigms. The Council additionally develops national treatment guidelines, drawing heavily upon the expertise and recommendations of the top physicians in the country,” explains Flemming Sonne, CEO of Amgros.
Moreover, this approach covers the full lifecycle of a product, from innovation and new market entries to mature brands and generic medicines. “What makes the Danish model so very unique is the national alignment. We have a single, streamlined framework where clinical, economic, and procurement perspectives blend together seamlessly,” he elaborates.
Creative Market Access Agreements
As with in many equivalent markets, the thorny issue that the Danish regulatory system is grappling with is that the advent of advanced biologics, cell and gene therapies, and increasingly personalized medicine will require wholesale reconfiguration of an infrastructure simply not yet set-up for the easy uptake of novel therapies as treatment guidelines.
“Advanced therapies pose fresh challenges for traditional decision-making structures. The Danish Medicines Council, which is approaching its tenth anniversary, has built a strong and highly respected health technology assessment (HTA) framework grounded in classical clinical research which utilizes randomised, double-blinded studies, and robust data. However, ATMPs often come with single-arm studies and far less documentation so new out-of-the-box solutions will necessarily need to be found,” believes Ida Sofie Jensen.
“What worked well in the past is no longer always fit for purpose in the current and future context. When it comes to integrating the next generation of modern medicines, we are evidently going to need a bit of a rethink. It’s imperative to identify creative ways to deregulate the process intelligently in a manner that continues to protect and safeguard patients, but also facilitates speedy access,” agrees, Jakob Nielsen, CEO of Healthcare Denmark.
“While we strive to evaluate advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs) under the same rigorous process as any other medicine approved for the Danish market, their complexity often calls for additional consideration. These therapies are typically introduced with limited clinical data, short follow-up periods, and high price tags, factors that make independent evaluation both more difficult and more important,” maintains Poulsen.
“To navigate these challenges, we are working closely with partners such as Amgros and the drugmakers to develop market entry agreements and explore alternative pricing models, particularly those involving risk sharing. This approach allows us to manage uncertainty, financially and clinically, by ensuring that costs are aligned with actual outcomes and that patients are not exposed to undue risk when evidence is still emerging,” she confirms.
“When it comes to ATMPs, they’re often seen as wonder drugs, and in many ways they actually are, particularly for rare diseases. However, a common challenge we encounter is the lack of sufficient data at the time of market entry. We simply don’t know enough about their real-world effectiveness or long-term outcomes. So, while millions are spent on these new therapies, we have to consider whether we’re doing enough to follow up effectively and verify how patients are actually doing months or years later,” reflects Sonne.
Amgros too has been taking definite steps to explore and encourage alternative access models. “We’ve already established several special agreements with industry actors. Companies can submit applications to propose alternative contract models which might include subscription-based payments, agreements linked to treatment effectiveness, or other arrangements tailored to specific therapeutic areas. One of the most important principles for us is ensuring some level of insurance or protection around the clinical effect of a product. For example, if a gene therapy doesn’t deliver long-term results after several years, someone has to take accountability for bearing that cost when the initial data has been weak, the price tag high, and the long-term efficacy unclear,” he affirms.
“In Denmark, at least, you always get a strong sense that there is a solution to be found,” contemplates Steve Wright. “One of the standout features is the sheer openness of its regulatory institutions to engage in proactive and transparent dialogue, and the readiness to be constructive in identifying win-win solutions that benefit all sides,” he insists.
Generics-Friendly
Denmark’s framework conditions for generics and biosimilars are also exceptionally strong. “We are fortunate to enjoy a system that ensures generics are accessible from day one after patent expiry at both hospitals and community pharmacies. We estimate that approximately 75% of daily doses by volume dispensed through pharmacies are generics, while over half of all daily doses administered within hospitals constitute either generics or biosimilars,” observes Peter Jorgensen, Director of the Danish Generic and Biosimilar Medicines Industry Association (IGL).
“In our opinion, ensuring access to cost-effective generics is just as important as evaluating and negotiating new, innovative treatments: in fact, the success of the former is a prerequisite to freeing up the finances to be able to support the success of the latter,” argues Amgros’ Flemming Sonne. Indeed, annual savings from genericized medicine are estimated at around DKK 10 billion with hospital savings totalling DKK three billion for generics and at least DKK one billion for biosimilars, much of which gets reinvested back into the health system.
Concurrently there tends to be a high trust in generics more widely across Danish society. By law, pharmacists must offer the cheapest available product, which is typically the generic, while patients are motivated by financial logic as well: if they opt for a more expensive brand, they must pay the entire price difference out of their own pocket.
Meanwhile, Denmark remains at the forefront of biosimilar utilization in its hospital segment propelled by a national tender system aimed at cost-effectiveness while sustaining high levels of clinical quality. “Unlike in many other markets, Danish doctors have shown an elevated level of acceptance when switching from originator products to biosimilars, precisely because these transitions are backed by clear clinical guidelines and national coordination,” says Sonne.
“Back in 2016 a critical decision was made that all EMA-approved biosimilars would be used at once in Denmark, even for well-treated patients. This shift saved considerable sums of money and helped hospitals manage their budgets more effectively. In fact, some originator products were completely phased out of hospitals within just three weeks whereas this is a process that ordinarily takes years in other markets,” recounts Jorgensen.
His association applauds both the Council and Amgros for their supportiveness and proactive posture. “They conduct what is called horizon scanning to closely monitor which biologics are nearing patent expiry. This allows Amgros to begin informal discussions with potential biosimilar suppliers up to three years in advance. Then, one year before the biosimilar launch, they initiate formal tender procedures. While the product cannot be sold until the patent expires, tendering and planning can happen beforehand under EU law. As a result, Danish hospitals are always able to be first movers in adopting biosimilars literally from day one,” he explains.
Elite Manufacturing Powerhouse
A final differentiating, if somewhat surprising, feature of the Danish market is its role as a manufacturing powerhouse. Pharma and medical device exports have more than tripled over the past decade with the lion’s share bound for heavyweight consumer nations, notably the United States and China. What immediately stands out is the sheer technical sophistication and niche orientation of many of the locally embedded life science manufacturers. For instance, there is virtually zero domestic production of generics.
“While Denmark may be far from being the most cost-efficient location in Europe, its real value lies in the strength and maturity of its life sciences ecosystem. This is an advantage that, in our experience, far outweighs the comparatively higher operational costs. This is especially important in areas like cell and gene therapies or biosimilars, where success depends less on marginal cost and more on having experienced professionals and purpose-built infrastructure. Once those conditions are in place, cost structures can be optimised over time through scale. But to get there, you need an enabling environment that can support execution from day one, and Denmark delivers exactly that,” expounds Kasper Møller, Chief Technical Officer and Executive Vice President for Europe and Japan Regions at AGC Biologics, a manufacturer of protein-based biologics using both microbial and mammalian systems.
“The name of the game for Danish manufacturers is to compete on quality and expertise, not cost alone. We offset labour intensity with technology by automating processes, embracing digitalisation, and improving operational efficiency. That’s how we continue to grow in a high-cost market. Not by compromising on quality or talent, but by building smarter, faster, and more connected systems on a strong local foundation offering unmatched levels of service and reliability,” agrees Christian Houborg, General Manager and Senior Vice President at FUJIFILM Biotechnologies.
“For example, we’ve incorporated Raman spectroscopy into our bioreactors to continuously monitor critical variables like nutrient levels, cell viability, and product formation without relying on traditional offline sampling. These systems are already improving consistency and our understanding of processes,” he continues.
Indeed, both companies have become pioneers in pushing the boundaries of the possible in life science manufacturing. AGC, which is busy assembling in Denmark one of Europe’s most significant hubs for single-use biologics manufacturing, has been radically adapting their technologies and workflows to meet rising expectations both in the scientific and regulatory domains.
“Many of the antibodies entering clinical development today are bispecific, tri-specific, or fusion proteins, and while this doesn’t fundamentally change our manufacturing layout, it does place far greater demands on our analytical and process development capabilities as we shift towards catering towards escalating demand for complex modalities,” acknowledges Møller who’s company has been investing heavily to stay ahead of the curve. “Incorporating 2,000-litre single-use bioreactors, our latest facility will be capable of delivering up to 200 batches annually, making us one of the world’s leading CDMOs in terms of mammalian single-use capacity,” he reveals.
FUJIFILM’s intention, for its part, is to industrialise biomanufacturing, not just in terms of scale, but also in reliability and speed thus allowing partners, from large innovators to mid-sized biotechs, to remain focused on discovery, knowing that the production segment of the value chain is covered with speed, precision, and global coordination.
“We are confident that our model will increasingly redefine the future of advanced biologics. Our Hillerød giga-facility is currently focused upon large-scale monoclonal antibody (mAb) production and caters to a significant share of global demand. But even within this complex space, things are evolving rapidly, particularly with the advent of formats like antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and other novel constructs, and we’re adapting with agility to respond dynamically to those shifting needs,” confirms Houborg.
He recalls that when FUJIFILM first entered the market, the original attraction was in the ability to acquire Biogen’s established infrastructure, affording an immediate foothold in a mature biomanufacturing environment. But what has really sustained and expanded their investment there subsequently has been Denmark’s exceptional concentration of talent and knowledge.
“With over 100,000 professionals working in biotech and pharmaceuticals across the country, the availability of highly skilled people isn’t just a strategic advantage, it’s a strategic imperative for scaling with confidence. You can replicate equipment and buildings, but you can’t develop strong competencies overnight,” he concludes.
