Frankfurt am Main is the fifth largest city in Germany, located in one of the largest economic regions in Germany and well known for its financial sector with more than two hundred banks, PE’s, VC’s and other financial institutions as well as the European Central Bank, the German Stock Exchange and the Deutsche Bundesbank. It is not surprising that – given these conditions – many start-ups have been emerging in the FinTech, telecommunication or information sector.
However, as you probably know LabBench2Business is headquartered in Frankfurt and we are happy to be located in that vibrant city that has so much more than financial institutions: The presence of leading universities, research centers and major Life Science corporations make the area very attractive for Life Science founders as well. Frankfurt is part of the Rhine-Main-Neckar region, also famous for its large number of Life Science companies – like Boehringer Ingelheim, Sanofi, Merck, abbvie and the current German Life Science “shooting star” BioNTech, which was brought into the spotlight in 2020 due to its mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine. Based on our continuous exchange with the Life Science community, we know that the “BioNTech story” has been extremely inspiring for many Life Science researchers and founders to further strengthen the German Life Science start-up ecosystem.
To only name a few of the Life Science highlights in the Rhine-Main-Neckar region:
- MYR Pharmaceuticals – the German biotechnology company focused on the development of therapeutics for the treatment of hepatitis B and D infections and the “billion-dollar-exit” in 2020 for the High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) – HTGF’s first Unicorn
- BioNTech – famous for its COVID-19 vaccine and the mRNA technology
- BRAIN Biotech AG – a leading German industrial biotechnology company
- BioMed X Institute – a leading research institute that accelerate the pace of innovation in preclinical research by combining the best of both worlds – academia and industry.
- BioLabs – the First European BioLabs, a US-based network of shared lab and office facilities located in key biotech innovation clusters
- Science4Life – a Frankfurt-based and well-known start-up competition for start-ups from academia
- BioRN – the science and industry cluster of the Rhine-Main-Neckar region, one of Germany’s strongest biotech hubs
The stated companies and associations are strongly interacting with world-leading life science research institutions (like European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Max Planck Institute for Biophysics or Brain Research and the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ)) and Life Science companies and thus create that vibrant ecosystem LabBench2Business is proud to be part of.