Turku Bio-Valley is Building up Fast

European Investment Bank grants EUR 28 million loan to Turku Bio Valley Ltd.

European Investment Bank (EIB), the financing institution of the European Union, will provide a 20-year loan facility of EUR 28 million to Turku Bio Valley Ltd. The loan enables the construction of production and product development facilities for companies utilising biotechnology in the Turku Bio Valley area. Finland ranks number six in Europe in biotechnology and the biggest cluster, more than half of Finland's pharmaceutical and diagnostic industry is located in the Turku region in Southwest Finland. Turku Bio Valley is responsible for the development of the uninterrupted bio chain from training to research, product development and production in the Turku region. The company also builds new R&D and production facilities for companies utilising biotechnology. Turku Bio Valley comprises of a 26-hectare area in the Turku Science Park with building permits for over 110,000 sqm facilities, of which almost 40,000 sqm have already been completed or are under construction.

Intensive growth of biotechnology creates demand for special facilities

The investment meets the EIB's aims under its Innovation 2000 Initiative (i2i) programme to support new facilites in fields such as biotechnology, microelectronics and information technology.

"Biotechnology and information & communication technology are also the core competencies of the Turku Science Park, and biotechnology has been named a key area in the City's strategy", says Armas Lahoniitty, Mayor of the City of Turku.

Turku Bio Valley Ltd was founded by the Turku City Council in 1999 to respond to the demand for biotechnology facilities. The city invested a capital of EUR 14.3 million in the project. The first company to have its own building with special technology was Novatreat Ltd. that focuses on decreasing the risk of hospital infections with its immune milk products. Large research, product development and production facilities for Focus Inhalation Oy with a total floor space of around 13,000 sqm will be completed in 2003. The company focuses on pulmonary drug delivery based on powder inhalalator technology. Turku Bio Valley Ltd also has three preliminary contracts at the moment and it is negotiating with two foreign companies.

The bio-chain leads from training to production.

The bioscience strategy in the Turku region aims at ensuring the functioning of the whole bio-chain. Training and research should also lead to bioscience entrepreneurship and take that development all the way towards commercial utilisation of new innovations and even new pro-duction plants. This is supported by the provision of appropriate services. The BioTurku community, the biotechnology actors in the Turku region, focuses on pharmaceutical and diagnostics businesses, biomaterials and bioprocesses as well as functional foods. There are currently more than 60 biotechnology companies in the Turku region.