When we visited Slovenia, we were impressed — and “impressed” may well be an understatement. The country’s potential in health and biotechnology is certainly worth exploring further. That is why we invited Boštjan Čeh, Chairman of the Board of Slovenia Biotech Hills, to tell us more.
Slovenija Biotech Hills (SBH) is a national platform bringing together key stakeholders across Slovenia’s biotechnology, pharmaceutical and broader life sciences ecosystem – from industry and research organisations to academia and other partners.
What does Slovenia Biotech Hills see as its core mission within Slovenia’s health innovation ecosystem right now, and how has that shifted since you started?
Slovenia Biotech Hills was founded with the mission of positioning Slovenia as one of the next leading biotechnology hubs in Europe and globally.
Our core mission today is very clear: to connect the key stakeholders across Slovenia’s biotechnology and pharmaceutical ecosystem and help create the conditions for biotechnology to become one of Slovenia’s development priorities — and for Slovenia to become a biotechnology nation.
Slovenia has a very strong pharmaceutical industry, global companies, excellent research institutions and universities, and a rapidly developing community of biotechnology companies. We already have critical mass. The key question is whether we can connect these assets and build on them to create a long-term competitive advantage.
An important step forward came this year, when, together with our partners, we prepared and presented the first national strategic framework for the development of biotechnology and pharmaceuticals in Slovenia through 2035. This is our most important substantive achievement to date: for the first time, we brought together different parts of the ecosystem around a shared assessment of our potential, key challenges, and development priorities for the coming decade.
For us, however, the strategy is only the beginning. One of the key areas of our work is therefore advocacy and structured dialogue with policymakers and decision-makers.
We want to build a broader understanding that biotechnology and pharmaceuticals are not only successful economic sectors, but areas of strategic importance to Slovenia’s future development, to the wider Southeast European region, and to the European Union as a whole — spanning the economy, science, healthcare, education, and society more broadly.
This needs to be reflected in concrete policies: a stable and predictable business environment, conditions that support new investment, support for research and knowledge transfer, access to capital, and the ability of Slovenia to develop, attract, and retain the best people — both Slovenian and international talent.
At the same time, we want Slovenia Biotech Hills to become a key gateway into Slovenia’s biotechnology and pharmaceutical ecosystem — for companies, investors, researchers, institutions, and international partners who want to understand what Slovenia has to offer, find the right people and organisations to work with, or develop new projects and partnerships here.
Our role has therefore evolved considerably from its initial focus on connecting the community. Today, we connect the ecosystem, build partnerships, shape a shared development agenda, advocate for it through dialogue with government, and represent Slovenia internationally.
What’s the biggest obstacle standing between a promising Slovenian health innovation and the market – funding, regulation, talent, or something else?
There is no single obstacle. The challenge is the environment in which an innovation has to move from the laboratory to the market.
Slovenia is very strong at generating knowledge and, globally speaking, offers one of the safest environments overall — something that is essential for people to create, discover, and innovate. We have excellent researchers, high-quality infrastructure, and a strong industrial tradition. Globally, Slovenia ranks among the leading countries in the number of PhDs per capita, as well as in the number of scientific publications per capita. But the journey from a strong research result to a globally successful product is a challenging one, involving questions of capital, clinical validation, intellectual property, entrepreneurial capabilities, talent, and access to international markets.
That is why much of our work at Slovenia Biotech Hills focuses specifically on the economic and broader environmental conditions required for growth. If we want more innovations to successfully reach the market, we need an environment in which researchers are incentivised to develop their ideas, entrepreneurs are able to establish and scale companies, international corporations are encouraged to invest in Slovenia, capital is willing to enter these projects, and the best professionals from Slovenia and abroad can build their careers and lives here.
This requires long-term predictability and coordinated action across different policy areas — from research and economic policy to taxation, education, migration, and healthcare. A successful biotech ecosystem cannot be built through a single measure or a single funding programme.
Where does Slovenia genuinely have an edge in health innovation, and what would it take for the rest of Europe to notice it?
Slovenia’s advantage is the exceptional concentration of industry, knowledge, research capabilities, and new investment relative to the size of the country.
We are talking about a country of just over two million people, where biotechnology and pharmaceuticals together account for more than 6% of GDP and directly and indirectly support more than 50,000 jobs. At the same time, a more than €2 billion investment cycle by major global pharmaceutical companies is currently underway, and it has accelerated further this year.
Within the region, Slovenia already has a leading position in pharmaceutical manufacturing and development. It is now a leading exporter of medicines in Central and Eastern Europe and among the world’s leading pharmaceutical exporters. We have a strong industrial base, a solid backbone of small and medium-sized enterprises, research excellence, a growing number of specialised biotechnology companies, and a connected environment in which key players are often located only a few dozen kilometres apart.
But potential alone is not enough. We want to establish a clear vision, mission, and direction for development that Europe and the world can recognise. That is precisely why we prepared the first joint strategic framework through 2035: to bring the biotechnology sector — large, medium-sized and small companies, research institutes, and academic institutions, working together with government and relevant ministries — around a common development direction, and to define what Slovenia needs to do if it wants to preserve and build on its current advantages over the long term.
Our ambition is to position Slovenia as a connected ecosystem and a credible European partner in developing Europe’s bioeconomy.
Our advantage is not the size of the country. Our advantage is the concentration of excellence within a very small geographic area — and our ability to connect that excellence faster and more effectively than larger systems can.
What changes would you like to see from EU policymakers in the way Europe supports health innovation across Member States?
We would like Europe — the European Union — to establish a much faster and more integrated pathway from scientific discovery to the market and to industrial production.
Europe does not have a problem with a lack of knowledge. It has a problem with how quickly it can turn that knowledge into companies, products, manufacturing capacity, quality jobs, and global competitiveness. Innovators still face fragmented sources of funding, complex regulatory processes, and a significant gap between research funding and the capital required for growth and industrialisation.
If we want to keep pace with the US and Asia — whether that means competing with them or working with them — we need to treat research, capital, regulation, talent, and industrial policy as parts of the same European competitive environment.
For smaller countries, there is another important consideration: Europe must be able to recognise and support excellence regardless of geography or the size of an ecosystem. We do not need just a handful of large biotechnology centres. We need a network of strong, specialised, and interconnected European ecosystems, each able to contribute its best knowledge, infrastructure, and industrial capabilities.
Only in this way can Europe accelerate the development of the bioeconomy and, by connecting European ecosystems, create the conditions for the development, breakthrough, and successful commercialisation of innovative biotechnology solutions. Through stronger connectivity, we can ensure that innovations are developed, scaled, financed, commercialised, and brought to market within the European space.
Slovenia is a good example of this potential. A small country can develop an exceptional concentration of industry, knowledge, and research capabilities. The role of national policy is to create an environment in which this potential can flourish. The role of Europe is to ensure that ecosystems like this can connect, grow, and compete globally.
Pictures: courtesy of Slovenija Biotech Hills
