The City of Turku is to invest heavily in biotechnology with its newly planned 26 ha. Bio Valley. The first construction phase will commence this year in a central location in Lauste with 112,000 sq. metres of floor space. In addition to research and product development units, Bio Valley will also house pharmaceutical industry production plants. The City has invested around EUR 12.6 million to found a real estate investment company to manage the premises.

As biosciences are a core skill in Turku Region, R & D activities in the biosciences are well organised here with five universities which makes the bio-research of the very highest standard. The strongest fields here are biomedicine, diagnostics, biomaterials, biochemistry, agrobiology and health promoting functional foods. These are also thought to be the fields where the best prerequisites for international growth exist.

Two kms away from the future Bio Valley, the Bio-City operates as a part of the Turku Technology Centre where universities and enterprises collaborate closely. Bio-City has been rated as a top science unit and its research group includes more than five hundred people. Together they form the Nordic countries' largest innovation base operating in one location. The bio-sciences know-how centre programme, managed by Turku Technology Centre, focuses on bio-materials, diagnostics and pharmaceutics development. This bio-business in south west Finland will be government supported as a concentrated field of know-how from 1999 to 2006. A lack of suitable production space has to date limited development, but Bio Valley will remove this one last obstacle.