About us
Since 2001, BioRegio STERN Management GmbH has been active as an economic developer for the life sciences. It promotes innovations and start-ups on behalf of the public sector, thus helping to strengthen the region and the industry as a whole. It is a central point of contact for founders and entrepreneurs, including those from cooperating high-tech sectors such as automation and IT.
Our mission
We help to seize opportunities and turn ideas into reality. As an industry insider, we are the central point of contact for networking players. We offer access to funding and ensure visibility in the life sciences sector and beyond.
One cluster, many competencies, a wide variety of cross-cutting issues
The STERN BioRegion covers the regions of Stuttgart and Neckar-Alb and the cities of Tübingen and Reutlingen – known worldwide for their automotive manufacturers – and is also home to over 120 small and medium-sized medtech companies. One of the cluster’s key features is its combination of established family businesses, hidden champions and over 110 fledgling biotech companies. Another outstanding and forward-looking feature is the spatial proximity of companies from the engineering-driven SME sector and companies from the life sciences industry. Consequently, the strategy of BioRegio STERN Management GmbH is to bring its life sciences cluster into contact with the local automation technology and mechanical and plant engineering sectors in order to create an exceptional mix of high-tech expertise across start-ups and global corporations.
Science and business, a successful symbiosis
The region’s economic prosperity is ideally complemented by scientific excellence of numerous renowned research institutes and three universities. The companies in the STERN BioRegion benefit from the large number of scientific institutions conducting research in the field of life sciences. These include, to name but a few, the University of Tübingen, the Tübingen University Hospital, the NMI Natural and Medical Sciences Institute at the University of Tübingen based in Reutlingen, the Universities of Stuttgart and Hohenheim, eight other universities with a focus on the life sciences, the Fraunhofer Institutes for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation (IPA) and for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology (IGB), and the German Institutes of Textile and Fiber Research (DITF) Denkendorf. In addition, there are the Max Planck Institutes for Intelligent Systems, for Developmental Biology and for Biological Cybernetics, as well as the Friedrich Miescher Laboratory of the Max Planck Society.
Networker and innovation promoter for the life sciences in the region
BioRegio STERN Management GmbH is shaping the future by promoting innovation in the life sciences in order to develop the economy in this area. Accordingly, it supports efforts to commercialize application-oriented research in order to bring innovative products and new therapies into the everyday lives of the population. Of course, this is also with a view to the economic potential that ultimately leads to the creation of new jobs. For this reason, BioRegio STERN Management GmbH promotes start-ups and cooperations, offers support in obtaining funding and organizes, for example, special coaching on the subject of product approval and specialist events. It also submits applications for funding projects and coordinates the same.
Award-winning
BioRegio STERN Management GmbH has already received many awards, such as the Silver Label from the European Secretariat for Cluster Analysis (ESCA) for its successful cluster management. The joint location initiative of politics and industry "Germany - Land of Ideas" selected the company network "ELSA - Automation Solutions for the Life Sciences" among the 100 best projects in 2016. The STERN BioRegion is thus officially an "Outstanding Landmark in the Land of Ideas".
STERN BioRegion: Figures. Facts.
The STERN BioRegion has been one of the largest and most successful BioRegions in Germany for many years. IPOs, start-ups and investments by and for companies from the region are proof of the continuing success of the economic development program.
BioRegio STERN Management GmbH offers inter-municipal economic development for a region with 248 towns and municipalities and a total of 3.3 million inhabitants. With a gross domestic product of over 180 billion euros, the economic power of this region can be described as significant.
120 medtech companies with over 12,000 employees and 110 biotech companies with over 4,500 employees form the core of the cluster. Of growing importance are the more than 1,000 engineering companies, of which around 40 are already active in the life sciences. In total, around 19,000 jobs are located in the life sciences sector in the region.
The STERN BioRegion has just under 400 "members"; the majority are SMEs (55%). There are also large companies (3 percent), universities and research institutions (18 percent) and other organizations (24 percent). BioRegio STERN Management GmbH is 20 percent financed by public funding; shareholder subsidies account for 75 percent and five percent is revenue.
3 billion euros in investments and 550 million euros in federal funding alone have been invested in the 110 biotech companies in the region to date. Since its foundation, the BioRegio STERN Management GmbH team has supported the establishment of 75 companies that have created over 3,000 jobs.