High-Tech for Health and Quality of Life

Health and High-Tech - how do they go together? Health research and biotechnology play an important role in the High-Tech Strategy. This has led to Germany occupying a top place internationally in many areas. Despite intensive research, the causes of many diseases are still unknown. This is just one of the questions which the High-Tech Strategy sets out to solve in the field of health research.

Challenges and Goals

Remaining healthy or regaining one's health are key basic needs. Health research and biotechnology provide an important contribution in this area. It is the aim of the Federal Government to improve everybody's quality of life well into old age. This includes maintaining societal efficiency and the affordability of the health system.
The increasing need for medical services and innovative medical technology unleashes great economic potential, as do new applications originating in the field of biotechnology.

Balance and Prospects

Health research and biotechnology are central fields of action under the High-Tech Strategy. Germany takes top places in many sectors world-wide.
Important milestones:

  • Medical genome research leads to new types of diagnoses and therapies. Here Federal Government funding is establishing the preconditions for customized medical treatment.
  • Support from the Federal Government has made it possible to successfully develop new fields of research such as systems biology, regenerative medicine or computational neuroscience from an early stage.
  • With support from the Federal Government, science and industry have recognized the positive significance and potential of nutrition research in preventing and influencing diseases and have taken up this question.
  • Prevention research is the fourth pillar of the health system along with curing, caring and rehabilitation. These have been combined and thus improved.
  • Health research is developing new, integrative concepts for the whole spectrum of prevention, diagnosis and treatment right up to rehabilitation and aftercare. The preconditions are being created for transferring these concepts to clinical practice as quickly as possible.
  • Patient care research is being intensified in order to ensure the nation-wide provision of high quality medical and nursing care. This plays an important role precisely against the background of demographic change, limited financial resources and medical-technical progress.
  • The "Pharma Initiative" and the "Task Force Pharma" are providing new impetus for Germany as a location for the biotechnology and pharmaceuticals industries. The aim is for Germany to once again become the "world's pharmacist".

Health - Great potential for industry

Companies in the health sector are expected to demonstrate huge potential for growth in the years to come. Technical progress and demographic change will ensure that the need for medical services will increase further.

The health industry is already one of the largest sectors in Germany with a workforce of over 4.4 million and a 10.6% share of GDP. In economic terms, it is thus larger than the car industry. According to preliminary estimates, up to 800,000 further jobs could be created in the German health industry by 2020.


German medical technology is considered to be particularly innovative with a total of 170,000 employees in over 11,000 companies, most of them SMEs. This sector occupies a top place internationally. Overall turnover increased by 21.4% from 14.7 to 18.7 billion euros between 2005 and 2008. Exports represent the driving force with a share of 64%.

Drugs from biotechnology laboratories have also gained a considerable share of the market: With a turnover of 4 billion euros, they accounted for 15% of the overall turnover of the pharmaceuticals industry in Germany in 2007.



  • Providing impetus to promising new fields of research

    The complete decoding of the human genome in 2001 represented a milestone in the history of medical research. The human genotype is made up of approximately 25,000 genes. Health research soon recognized that many diseases, for example certain tumours, are due to a genetic defect. The importance of medical genome research for the future thus became clear. This is just one field which is being granted special funding under the High-Tech Strategy.
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  • The German Medical Technology Sector: High level of innovation as a guarantee for growth

    Medical technology in Germany demonstrates a high level of innovation. One of the focuses of the High-Tech Strategy is therefore on the continuation and expansion of this discipline. For example, medical technology designs new types of equipment for different areas of use, e.g. systems which enable operations using so-called key-hole techniques. A further innovation is equipment in miniature form such as a tiny pressure-measuring capsule to control blood pressure.
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