BioPark Regensburg starts 10 year anniversary

With the appointment of managing director Dr. Thomas Diefenthal on 1 April 1999, BioPark Regensburg GmbH started its operative business on the grounds of the University. “When I started, there was a bare shell construction building and I moved into my first office as a subtenant in the new Regensburg Town Hall”, recalls Dr. Diefenthal. Initially as a one-man enterprise, he organised from this point the construction of the BioPark I building, the building up of the Cluster BioRegio Regensburg and consultancy to start-up companies. Today the BioPark has meanwhile become one of the larger centres in Germany with currently two buildings and 12,000 m2 and the Biotech-Cluster BioRegio Regensburg is the second largest in Bavaria, following Munich, with currently 40 companies.
In the last 10 years 23 companies have been able to be founded and 3 firms located in the field of “life sciences”. In contrast, up to this point there have been 6 insolvencies and 13 so-called departures through takeovers/mergers, disbandment or relocation. The number of employees has risen from 390 in 1999 to 2,429 at this time. In the same period of time a total of 128 million € in promotion funds and 101 million € in venture capital was able to be acquired from the companies and the BioPark. The companies have raised 213 million € in equity capital. In total all the companies of BioRegio Regensburg have invested 329 million € in their enterprises in the last 10 years. Essential in contributing to this success has been the light structure of the BioPark Team. With only four full-time employees and three employees with fractional involvement, a highly modern business with a large technical infrastructure is kept running. Charge is held over 22 tenants with a total of 500 employees in house and the BioRegio Regensburg network with 40 companies in Germany and abroad with diverse projects, events and public work is maintained.
We will keep you up-to-date about future dates for anniversary events in 2009.