“With everything that’s going on in the world, Europe needs to wake up. The Nordics need to wake up. We hear a lot of talk – but I want to see action,” she says, pointing to the instability triggered by the war in Ukraine and shifting leadership sentiment in the US.

Her call echoes the Draghi Report on the Future of European Competitiveness (2024), which warns that Europe’s innovation capacity is being undermined by fragmentation and slow decision‑making.

MVA’s State of Medicon Valley Report 2025, published in November last year, highlights the role of strong life science hubs in strengthening European competitiveness.

Medicon Valley – spanning eastern Denmark and southern Sweden – is Europe’s third-most active biopharma cluster, with over 85,000 employees in more than 1,500 life science companies in the region. MVA’s State of Medicon Valley Report 2025, published in November last year, highlights the role of strong life science hubs in strengthening European competitiveness.

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The European life science industry: The time to step up is now

Europe ranks highly when it comes to life science know-how and knowledge, but the region is falling behind when it comes to R&D and turning science into real-world solutions. Complex regulations, a fragmented market, scattered funding, and the potential US market tariffs are just some of the challenges ahead.

“Together we can be world-leading”

Steenberg stresses that no single Nordic country has the scale to compete globally: “It’s important that we stick together because otherwise we can never do what Draghi tells us we need to do to increase European competitiveness. Sweden will never be world-leading in a lot of things on its own, and neither will Denmark – but together we can be world-leading in more areas.”

Proximity is one of the region’s greatest assets, she adds. “We can basically jump in the car and within one hour we can have lunch with each other,” she says of the Lund–Copenhagen corridor.

Structural barriers

But structural barriers still block progress. For example, national funding rules prevent joint projects: “Our challenge is we have two different national systems and legislation within the healthcare sector and we don’t have much incentive. I cannot apply for Vinnova funds because Vinnova only funds Swedish projects, and the same goes in Denmark,” she says.

If you’ve ever done a Nordic project, you know that the amount of admin, the amount of processes, the amount of approvals – it’s worse than in the EU

“Our governments need to make it easier to collaborate and need to give incentives. If you’ve ever done a Nordic project, you know that the amount of admin, the amount of processes, the amount of approvals – it’s worse than in the EU,” continues Steenberg.

“My call to the national governments is: If you want Europe to be more competitive and to be stronger, you need to sit down and make some joint rules that work also in real life, so people don’t give up before they even get started,” she concludes.