Press release: Focus on health economy in the Baltic Sea Region can create new jobs, reduce costs and provide better health care

Focus on health economy in the Baltic Sea Region can create new jobs in a growing and stable industry, reduce costs of health care challenged by demographic ageing and provide better health care which e.g. can deal with the increase of non-communicable diseases. These are some of the key conclusions from the BSHR HealthPort project co-financed by the EU Baltic Sea Region programme 2007 – 2013.

An important step to achieve these ambitious goals was taken when HealthPort at the annual summit for the EU Baltic Sea Region Strategy 11th to 12th November 2013 in Vilnius released an innovation agenda “Driving cross-sectoral innovation in health and life sciences”.

Wolfgang Blank, Chairman of ScanBalt® fmba and CEO of BioCon Valley says “Health care is split into sectors which function separately: health care providers, enterprises, and research institutions, regulatory and financing institutions. We need to bridge the gaps by involving Baltic Sea Region key stakeholders thereby creating a trans-national value chain of health care innovations”.

The HealthPort innovation agenda describes a model for an “Innovation Ecosystem” serving as a framework and guideline for implementation. The first innovation platforms in health care are already in the process of being established.

Since 2001 health and bio economy in the Baltic Sea Region have worked under the brand ScanBalt BioRegion, www.scanbalt.org

For further information on the HealthPort innovation agenda contact project manager Thomas Karopka at , tel +49 3834 515-303.

The agenda can be downloaded at BSHR HealthPort Innovation Agenda

For further information on BSHR HealthPort, ScanBalt and ScanBalt BioRegion contact General Secretary Peter Frank at, mob +4527141078.