Turku Science Park Ltd in 2009

Transcription

1 ANNUAL REPORT

2 ANNUAL REPORT

3 Turku Science Park Ltd in 2009 Table of Contents... 3 CEO s Review Review of the main sectors Biotech trends in Turku Applied ICT in Southwest Finland in BioTurku Case: Mirena keeps gaining popularity Case: From father to son: Hidex now has two business areas Applied ICT and development projects Case: IKITIK sorts out health records Case: When IT causes pain, TUTKA comes to rescue Centre of Expertise and international operations Case: Experience Labs probes the tourists minds Case: A survival guide for the paper and pulp addicted Business development Case: IT Mill Ltd. has the courage to succeed Case: SXG Finland Ltd was born from the recession Biocelex Ltd Communications and marketing Case: April Fool s the Amish as real estate marketers Turku Science Park in the headlines in Premises Activities of the Board Income statement and balance sheet Catalyst for innovative growth

4 CEO s Review CEO s Review Turku Science Park Ltd commercialises innovations created in local universities and colleges and promotes the development and growth of business based on a high level of expertise. The company s main business areas are biotechnology and applied information technology. Businesses and research come together in projects, and the resulting high tech products are further refined into businesses in business incubators. The company s services are aligned with the cluster and innovation programmes laid down in the industrial strategy of the City of Turku. 4

5 Biocelex Ltd, a joint venture of Turku Science Park Ltd and Karolinska Institutet Holding Ab, is a development company that concentrates on fostering Life Sciences innovations and business development, and operates like any other business on the field.turku Science Park s decision to partner up with the best international organizations that operate in the Science Park s fields of expertise seems to have been a good move. The operations of Biocelex Ltd met expectations and the financial results were good, too. In 2009, Turku Science Park Ltd made a second investment in Karolinska Development Ab s share issue We have also created plans for another development company like Biocelex that would serve the needs of other technologies, especially applied ICT. We believe that in a small country like Finland, it definitely pays off to cooperate across businesses and municipalities in order to create innovations that have an impact. This applies to our current development company as well as the one to be established. The development companies operate nationally, whereas Turku Science Park Ltd provides business services on a regional level. Ideas will grow and prosper as long as the experts in research and commercialisation take the time to cooperate. Turku Science Park Ltd has invested in the development of regional infrastructure to ensure a competitive operating environment for companies. This principle has most notably been carried out by Turku Bio Valley Ltd that has provided comprehensive facility services to Life Science companies. Our new operating model, where we sell our real estate in cooperation with City of Turku, made good progress and we hope to be able to use the funds obtained to develop business in the future. The amount of tenants increased from last year, which is a fairly good development considering the difficult economic circumstances. New tenants moved into the Bio Valley s pharmacological industry building too and business premises were constructed therein, but special premises remain underutilised, which does have an impact on the Group s financial result. Market instability has meant trying times for companies and their operations. We believe that better days are ahead, but success needs expertise, concentration on the core factors of competitiveness and investments in industrial cooperation. Regardless of the economical situation, organisations benefit from the operating environment offered by Turku Science Park. Companies can concentrate on their core business when we harness our contacts to benefit the customer company and to create real, tangible projects for the development of their business. Strategically, it will be increasingly important to commercialise the innovations created in universities and colleges, and equally important will be cooperation between universities. The merger of the University of Turku with the Turku School of Economics creates vast possibilities to our company and other Science Park stakeholders. As we continue to develop Turku Science Park into an even more internationally competitive organisation, we must increase cooperation with the Turku University of Applied Sciences and Åbo Akademi University, whose top-class research areas are an excellent match to our business areas. Rabbe Klemets Acting CEO of Turku Science Park Ltd 5

6 Review of the main sectors Biotech trends in Turku The global economical crisis caused the funding for Life Science companies to dry up, but in spite of that many positive news emerged in the Turku Life Science sector in Bayer Schering Pharma, the financial powerhouse in Turku, successfully increased the volume of its operations. The sales of the hormone-releasing intrauterine contraceptive Mirena increased to 490 million euros, placing it sixth in the global Bayer Group s list of bestselling prescription medicines. Moreover, tablet production at the Turku factory has tripled in recent years, as operations from other factories have been transferred to Turku. PerkinElmer Human Health (known in Turku as Wallac) concentrates on the growing screening market and related diagnostics. In 2009, the company achieved a significant milestone as it received marketing authorization in the USA for neonatal screening systems. The system will be further developed and expanded, which will mean significant investments in product development in Turku in On the other hand, the manufacture of radiometric detection devices, was transferred from Turku to the United States. The turnover of Orion increased in 2009 by approximately 8.5% to million euros. The sales of products based on Orion s own research grew markedly. As a result of restructuring of operations, the Turku unit started to concentrate even more on the development of original drugs. Towards the end of 2009, the Turku unit hired several experts in chemistry. Orion has also increased its cooperation with small and medium enterprises. A good example is the agreement between Orion and Turku-based DelSiTech Ltd published in autumn Breakthroughs in the small and medium enterprise sector In spite of the economical situation, many small and medium enterprises in the Life Sciences sector had a fine year. HyTest Ltd, a diagnostics company operating in Turku Science Park, continued its brilliant success: the turnover increased to 7.8 million euros and operating profit to 2.2 million euros. The company has achieved global market leadership as the manufacturer of certain immunological reagents, such as cardiac markers and influenza antibodies. The drug discovery and development company Biotie Therapies, operating in Turku and in Germany, seeks to develop a drug for the treatment of schizophrenia with drug company Wyeth. This year the project reached an important milestone, which entitled Biotie Therapies to receive a milestone payment stipulated in the agreement between the companies. Towards the end of the year, Biotie s share issue was oversubscribed twofold, and the company collected a nice sum of 7.2 million euros. Hormos Medical, a subsidiary of the American company QuatRx Pharmaceuticals, successfully completed the last phase of clinical trials for Ophena TM (ospemifene) which is a drug for treating the symptoms of post-menopausal decline of estrogen levels. The company will probably submit an application for a sales approval for the drug in A major shareholder of Turku-based Juvantia Pharma, Santhera Pharmaceuticals from Switzerland, bought the entire share capital of the company after positive Phase II results were obtained in Juvantia s project for developing a drug for Parkinson s disease. At the end of the year, Santhera made a significant agreement based on the project with the Canadian company Biovail Corporation. Abacus Diagnostica Ltd, a company operating in the field of diagnostics, collected a large amount of funds from domestic investors and will expand its business to clinical laboratory assays. The new DNA-based testing system is an innovation developed at the University of Turku s Department of Biotechnology: a disposable test chip that contains chemical reagents. The GenomEra product family for the identification of infectious diseases will be launched Europe-wide in

7 Life Sciences is completely international. The domestic market is too small even for service companies in the sector. ArcDia Group developed a new quick test for screening swine influenza. The test was developed in cooperation with the universities in the Turku area, Turku University Hospital and the National Institute for Health and Welfare. The test saw trial use at the Turku University Hospital during the influenza epidemic of winter Company mergers took place in Turku s strong pharmaceutical industry service sector. The Finnish-Indian Systems Biology Worldwide Ltd acquired 4Pharma, a company specialised in information management and statistical analysis solutions for clinical drug development. The Turku-based Pharmatest Services Ltd, Orthotopix Ltd and Genolyze Ltd merged also. After the merger, the new Pharmatest will have a staff of 30 people, a broader range of services and will become a significant contract research organisation for the pharmaceutical and chemical industry. Medbase Ltd, a company from the Turku Science Park s business incubator, signed a large cooperation agreement with a foreign company. Medbase s SFINX database that provides information about drug interactions is now offered by Elsevier, Italy s largest medical pulisher. Research becomes more international VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and the German drug giant Bayer Schering Pharma AG signed an agreement on cooperation concerning the research and development of new cancer drugs. The research uses methods developed by VTT to study genes and cancer cells. The agreement is a sign of the high level of appreciation that VTT s Turku Unit enjoys among the global pharmaceutical industry. Owing to the imaging expertise at Turku, three large-scale research projects were started in 2009 with the aim of determining the importance of imaging in cardiac diseases. The projects are based on EU funding and on Finnish-Canadian cooperation. Another proof of the expertise in the Turku area is the Medix prize that was awarded to Professor Johanna Ivaska s research group for the best Finnish publication in biomedicine. The publication sheds light on the early development of cancer. The Turku Clinical Biomaterials Centre (TCBC) was officially opened in October. TCBC concentrates on the research and development of metal-free, tissue-adhering biomaterials and their applications for the benefit of patients. FinnBIRD, the brain injury research centre founded by the Hospital District of Southwest Finland, has co-operated with university research units (Turku Center for Disease Modeling - TCDM, Center for Clinical Research - CRC and Turku Centre for Biotechnology) in order to build substance expertise and capacity that would win clients among local life sciences companies as well as global giants. There must be preparedness to market this expertise on a professional scale. Growth and product development in the Life Sciences industry requires long-term funding. The outlook for the Life Sciences sector in whole Europe has become weak owing to a shortage of venture capital. Turkubased companies have succeeded in making breakthroughs, but the establishment of new Life Science companies has been hampered by the lack of regional early-phase investors. 7

8 Review of the main sectors Applied ICT in Southwest Finland in 2009 The economic challenges in 2009 took their toll also on the information and communications technology sector. The recession reduced turnovers and resulted in job losses. Yet the effects remained smaller than what was anticipated, especially in the field of applied ICT. All in all, the sector did not experience significant changes in Turku. 8 Several companies made significant progress despite the hard times. Axel Technologies Ltd, a company specialised in wireless communications technology, announced in January that it has secured further funding of 2.4 million euros for product development of mobile TV technology and internationalisation. The strengthened capital base enables the company to boost its international sales and marketing to achieve market leadership in their field of business. The capital is also used to enhance product development for the mobile TV market. The broadband communications solution provider Teleste and the expert in networking solutions, Cybercom Plenware, deepened their cooperation by signing a cooperation agreement with Teleste s product development activities. The cooperation supports Teleste s strategy for growth and enables the company to concentrate on their core business. Furthermore, it brings flexibility to human resources needed in product development. Sanako Oy, a company specialised in developing TVET: Technical and Vocational Educational and Training systems, announced in March that it will cooperate with local stakeholders to open a a regional office in Brazil. The new regional office gives Sanako a possibility to gain a foothold in the rapidly growing Brazilian market. Strong expertise in language technology Language technology company Lingsoft Inc. acquired the majority of the share stock of The English Centre, one of the oldest and most renowned translation agencies in Finland. The English Centre s skill and expertise in the public sector and in demanding corporate communications, for example translations of annual reports, further strengthens Lingsoft s position in the Finnish language services market. Lingsoft s position was also strengthened by the news that Microsoft chose Lingsoft as one of the suppliers of their new proofreading applications. Microsoft is developing a new technological approach to proofreading, hyphenation and thesauri. Lingsoft participates in this development as a piloting partner. Automatic information search has become an important field of research in computational linguistics. Natural language processing in the biotech and medical field, known as Bio NLP, is researched in the University of Turku by the Bioinformatics Group of the Department of Information Society Technologies. This research group, which operates as a part of IKITIK Consortium achieved international recognition in early 2009 by winning the first place among 40 participants in the BioNLP 09 science competition organised by University of Tokyo. It was a significant achievement for IT research, since it shows that novel interdisciplinary IT research supports the strategic strengths of the University of Turku. In this particular field of expertise, University of Turku can become the top university in the world without a massive investment in resources. The victory has already generated possibilities for cooperation and an invitation to a significant R&D project.

9 Cooperation in research and development Turku Science Park is also the centre for product development, which is crucial to university-based research and business. Turku Centre for Computer Science (TUCS) and Turku Science Park Ltd have continued their active cooperation of which a good example is the Science Parksupported cooperation in education between TUCS and Saint Petersburg State University. For a couple of years now Turku University of Applied Sciences and the University of Turku have jointly taught games industry experts. Technology Industries of Finland Centennial Foundation has launched a project called Game Tech&Arts Lab that seeks to combine resources in universities to provide a comprehensive training programme for the games industry and to create a game development environment in the ICT Building. Initially, the development environment will house education and events. At a later stage, it will also offer development and testing services using the Living Lab principle. IT Mill Ltd., a company that develops software tools, is a good example of the business potential of Turku Science Park s ICT sector. This company that took its first steps in Turku Science Park business incubator and that operates currently in the Old Mill building was awarded in 2008 for its achievements in developing the ICT industry in Southwest Finland by the ICT committee of Turku Chamber of Commerce. The committee granted the award on the grounds that IT Mill has proven to the Finnish software industry that open source and profitable business form an equation that can be solved. Several actions promoting international cooperation and awareness of Turku Science Park were carried out in The Science Park acted as a host for several scientific conferences as well as national and international seminars related to the Science Park s business areas. Turku Science Park Ltd also hosted expert delegations from various countries and arranged visits to international companies and new market areas. The Science Park area has tremendous potential for business and research in Life Sciences and applied ICT. Many companies aim to grow and internationalise quickly, which indicates that the business area is a dynamic and vibrant one. We must continue our efforts in expanding the cooperation between businesses and research institutes. One of the challenges we will face is a shortage of experts. In 2010, Turku Science Park Ltd will find solutions to these challenges. 9

10 BioTurku BioTurku In 2009, BioTurku concentrated on activating regional programmes, enhancing the business possibilities of local companies and updating its strategy to reach year The strategy of BioTurku was revised to be more informative, especially to international customers. The strategy was sharpened by reducing the thematic focus areas from four to three cancer, inflammatory diseases and central nervous system diseases. The strategy will now meet demand better, as the focus is now on disease types instead of technology. At the same time, drug development, biomaterials, diagnostics and bioimaging were included in the strategy in a more distinct way, as strengths across the focus areas. Support for central projects By active lobbying Bio Turku gave a boost to the process that resulted in bioimaging being named among the most important branches of the country s research infrastructure by the Ministry of Education - being the only research branch in Southwest Finland to reach this status. BioTurku has supported the efforts of making Turku the centre for bioimaging organisations and activities as well as of integrating bioimaging into the local innovation chain. In addition, Turku Science Park Ltd has funded the marketing on Turku Bioimaging and its international Master s degree program. Turku Bioimaging is an interdisciplinary bioimaging consortium for the researchers of the University of Turku and Åbo Akademi University. To support the productification and sales of the services provided by the Turku Centre for Disease Modeling, BioTurku has participated in the Centre s marketing and customer acquisition efforts in international fairs. Likewise, when the Hospital District of Southwestern Finland established the National Brain Injury Centre, FinnBIRD, BioTurku provided support in designing the operating model and assisted in launching the service business aimed for companies. The Turku Clinical Biomaterials Centre, TCBC, was opened on 29 October TCBC combines materials research expertise with medical research with the aim of bringing benefits to patients. BioTurku has helped the centre to start operations and obtain funding for projects. Together with the Hospital District, universities and companies, BioTurku has made preparations for the planning and establishment of a local unit for Comprehensive Cancer CenterFinland (CCCF). Cooperation across businesses and nations BioTurku participated in arranging some important seminars in A scientific seminar was held in Heidelberg, as had been agreed upon in the cooperation agreement of 2008 between Turku Science Park and the German Heidelberg Technologiepark GmbH. The meeting succeeded in increasing interdisciplinary cooperation. BioTurku and Functional Foods Forum have worked to establish cooperation between the pharmaceutical industry and food industry. The Genomes and Health forum held in spring generated some initial cooperation projects between researchers. The Intelligent Biomarker Combinations seminar, jointly arranged by BioTurku and Strategic Focus for Health and Well-being, (SHOK) attracted a large interdisciplinary audience consisting of company representatives and researchers. Promoting international business The world s largest Life Sciences fair, BIO2009, was held in Atlanta, USA, where the BioTurku concept was presented in the joint Scandinavian pavilion directly to prospective investors and customers. BioTurku also participated in Life Sciences partnership events in Milan, Vienna and Stockholm. As a result of these activities, a representative from the international corporation Wyeth visited Turku to investigate the expertise in our area. Moreover, several negotiations were started between companies. As a member of the ScanBalt cooperation network, BioTurku has participated in the initiation of interdisciplinary Master s degree and PhD programmes. BioTurku has also been involved in the preparation of 10

11 the Baltic Sea Strategy and its strategic flagship project to improve the health care systems in the countries around the Baltic Sea. An Internationalisation Club for the FinnishBio and Pharmaceutical service sector was established in Its task is to examine the challenges of internationalisation and to identify bottlenecks which might prevent it or slow down internationalisation. At the initiative of the local diagnostics companies, BioTurku also started an Internationalisation Club for Diagnostics to promote cooperation between companies and to disseminate best practices. As a result, cooperation between companies and Turku University Hospital has become significantly easier. Turku Science Park Ltd coordinates the national HealthBIO Centre of Expertise programme. A two-day annual seminar was held in Helsinki under the HealthBIO programme. The seminar is probably the biggest event in Finland for Life Science companies. HealthBIO has especially concentrated on active international communication about the Finnish Life Sciences expertise. It has also launched a Pharmaceutical Gateway China Finland/Europe project which increases cooperation with Chinese Life Science organisations and improves access to Chinese market. For more information, please contact: Turku Science Park Ltd / BioTurku, Director Tero Piispanen, tel

12 12 BioTurku CASE: Mirena keeps gaining popularity When speaking about Turku s Life Science sector, it is hard to leave the city s top-ranking corporate taxpayer, Bayer Schering Pharma Ltd, unmentioned. Bayer s hormone-releasing intrauterine contraceptive Mirena, Turku s gift to women of the world, keeps gaining popularity. 12 Brought to market in 1990, Mirena, the pride of Bayer Schering Pharma s Turku factory, keeps winning the hearts of women like only a 20-year old youngster can. Mirena s sales numbers grew in 2009 by 4.9% from 462 million to 490 million euros, which makes it the sixth most sold prescription medicine of the entire Bayer Group. Mirena is the result of Finnish product development from start to finish, and such an ingenious device it is that, even after these 20 years, competing intrauterine hormonal devices simply do not exist. - Mirena is competing against other contraceptives. In the Nordic countries, Mirena s market share is about 14%, but in many other countries only 5%, so there still is potential for growth. I believe the growth will continue, says Peter Essen, vice CEO of Bayer Schering Pharma Ltd. Bayer is currently developing a new product in the polymer product group at the Turku factory. The intrauterine contraceptive LCS is based on polymer technology like Mirena and has already reached Phase III trials according to Essen. - And by no means is Mirena our only product that has potential for growth. We also have Jadelle, which is a subcutaneous contraceptive that provides contraception for 35 years. Last year Jadelle s sales increased over 100%, says Essen. Bayer feels at home in Turku Bayer has had a large influence on the fact that people so often associate Turku with Life Sciences. Bayer s Turku factory employs 613 people, making it the the company s largest drug factory outside Germany. It is a global giant s footprint right in BioTurku s backyard. According to Essen, Bayer has investigated what kind of cooperation could be established with the Turku biocluster next door, but no practical solution has been found. - We simply have not had the need for external developers, since we possess the needed expertise ourselves, Essen says, referring to Bayer s research and development unit of a hundred employees. However, Bayer Schering Pharma Ltd is a fine reminder that it is possible to develop a globally successful product in Finland and in Turku, and also to keep its production in Turku. The cost level of the Turku factory cannot compete with China or India, but Turku has other strengths, such as reliability. Without it, drug production in Europe would have stopped long ago. Turku is a good operating environment for a drug factory. - Bayer has excellent relationships with the city administration. Years ago, we started discussions with the city to have the city plan in Artukainen modified so that industry would have a little more land to use. The plan was accepted surprisingly easily, and there were no complaints. We immediately purchased more land, which enables us to expand in the future, praises Essen.

13 CASE: From father to son: Hidex now has two business areas Jukka Haaslahti, the founder and long-time CEO of Hidex Ltd, handed the CEO s post to his son Ville Haaslahti in the beginning of Ville will continue to broaden Hidex s customer base from Life Sciences to nuclear industry. Hidex Ltd could be characterised as the unsung success story of the Turku Biocluster. The company was established in 1993 by Jukka Haaslahti, the former vice CEO of Wallac. Hidex sells its high tech products globally, but while other companies make headlines, Hidex has intentionally kept a low profile. Boasting is not a part of the company strategy, even though the customers include Nato and the defence forces of various countries. - We keep our feet to the ground while making progress. We intend to stick around in Science Park for years to come and keep on growing. Together with Sitra we have created a company that will be alive and kicking even in the distant future, says Haaslahti. Hidex manufactures analytical measurement instruments for Life Science research laboratories, and for a long time it has been one of the strongest growing companies in BioTurku. In the early 2000s, Hidex s turnover was approximately half a million euros, but it has since increased steadily to about 2.5 million euros. - We currently have ten employees. But we have networked extensively, and if our subcontractors are taken into account, we actually employ at least 30 people, estimates Haaslahti. Measurement instruments for laboratory and field The basis for growth was created in when Haaslahti recruited his former colleagues from Wallac to Hidex to work in product development. The new group used its skill and experience to create Hidex s current range of products. A breakthrough product was Plate Chameleon, a multimode reader that can be used in both diagnostics and the pharmaceutical industry. Versatility was also apparent in the next hit product Triathler, which is suitable for field work and can detect both radioactive and non-radioactive labels. Triathler showcased that the biotechnical innovations created by Hidex could be applied also to environmental monitoring. In 2008, Hidex launched a new product called Hidex 300 SL, which was an even more determined effort to gain a foothold in the environmental monitoring and nuclear industry markets. The device can be used to measure radioactivity in samples collected from the environment, but it can also be used in biochemical research. Consequently, it also meets the needs of Hidex s original customer segment: Life Science companies. With it Hidex 300 SL brought a generational change to the company, since Ville Haaslahti was given the chance to prove his worth in launching this new product. - Ville assumed all responsibility of Hidex 300 SL and he took care of it well. I will continue to be employed by Hidex and will be involved in strategic planning, but from now on, Ville will have operational responsibility, says Jukka Haaslahti, who will become the Chairman of the Board of Hidex Ltd. Haaslahti believes he has left his son a company that is in great shape. - We can see growth for this new product as it meets the needs of nuclear industry. Nuclear power is gaining popularity and nuclear industry will be one of the growth sectors of the future, predicts Haaslahti. 13

14 Applied ICT and development projects Applied ICT and development projects In the information and communications technology (ICT) sector, Turku Science Park concentrated particularly on regional innovation activities and actions that pave the way for cooperation between local companies and researchers. In the modern world, practically all business is inextricably linked to the ICT sector. The solutions provided by the ICT sector improve productivity and have therefore become an integral part of daily work in all sectors. Outside the capital region, the Turku-Salo area forms the strongest ICT cluster in Finland, with plenty of activity in scientific research as well as related product development in businesses. The centre of scientific ICT research is located at the Turku Science Park, where sectors that support each other are in close proximity and can thus benefit from the generated synergies. Applied ICT in Turku concentrates on health and well-being, biotechnology, language technology and the marine and metal sectors. Our other strengths lie in electronics, digital media and the application of ICT in various business environments, taking advantage of the knowledge obtained in the social sciences. Turku Science Park Ltd was very active in all these areas. In the field of health and well-being, the Information and Language Technology Consortium IKITIK, which relies heavily on the value chain concept, was nominated as a national spearhead project in The Consortium strives to make Turku the leader in clinical information processing and language technology in Finland by The consortium works at the interface of academia and industry and has created a proof-reading solution for clinical Finnish that was successfully piloted in the paediatric ward of Turku University Hospital. The success has paved the way for a more extensive development of information processing methodologies. Last year, Turku Science Park Ltd joined Ello, a programme, which aims to improve the competitive ability of Southern Finland s logistics gateway. The pilot project is a logistics hub called Logicity that will be built at the Turku Airport. The multi-stakeholder programme will go on for several years. Turku Science Park s task is to map and improve the regional security of logistics hubs like Logicity by examining the ICT and quality management systems of harbours, airports and large enterprises. Development of the ICT capacity of small and medium enterprises continued with the introduction of two new expert services. The elive and TUTKA services launched in early 2009 provide expert help which enables companies to benefit more from information technology. An especially effective and popular form of support have been the elive clinics arranged in cooperation with the University of Turku. A company can reserve a time at the clinic, and the expert provides solutions to IT problems on-site. Turku Science Park Ltd and Regional Council of Southwest Finland participate in the BASAAR Interreg IVA programme led by Uusimaa Regional Council. The programme investigates the possibilities of attracting investments from Asia to Northern Europe, particularly to the Baltic Region. The programme is carried out in close cooperation with the Swedes, Latvians and Estonians. In alignment with the strategies outlined by the City of Turku and the local universities, Turku Science Park Ltd will continue to concentrate on the application of information technology to the strongest business areas in the Turku Salo region and to the areas that show the most promise in the future, such as Life Sciences and health and welfare technologies. The effect of the activities will be strengthened by building strong partnerships with other organisations in the region. 14 For more information, please contact: Turku Science Park Oy / Applied ICT and development programmes, Director Sirpa Simola, tel

15 Not again! The goods did not arrive! Wow, 340,000 working days lost each month because of IT problems! Our situation is even worse. I have a few suggestions that will solve your company s IT problems! After you receive the report, you can implement its suggestions in the Treenit phase. NEWS SMEs lose 300,000 working NEWS days a month fighting IT problems. That order of yours is...well... um... Most small and medium enterprises struggle with IT problems which could be fixed with a few simple actions. Turku Science Park Ltd s elive project helps companies to transform information technology from a source of stress to a source of profits. The Startti consulting service maps a company s current IT situation and the Treenit phase implements the needed improvements. Financial support from the EU is available for both phases. Glad you re here! We cannot go on like this! I could not work at all, since my computer kept on crashing. Yes, I can tell you more about how Startti and Treenit helped us. Our production became more efficient and our turnover skyrocketed. BUSINESS HEADLINES PIPELINE LTD RANKED AS #1 - OWNER REVEALS HIS HELPERS Your business is the most imprtant thing. We will select the best partners for you, and you will decide which actions to take. 15

16 Applied ICT and development projects CASE: IKITIK sorts out health records IKITIK Consortium s work to improve the flow of information in the Finnish health care system starts to bring results. IKITIK s IT and language technology applications, such as the toolbox for clinical Finnish, have been successfully tested at the Turku University Hospital. 16 IKITIK is facing a major challenge. According to Finnish law, the care given to a patient must be clearly and comprehensively documented. This requirement generates a massive amount of patient records, the content of which is often unstructured and sometimes incomprehensible even to health care professionals not to mention the patients. The condensed language of medicine and nursing records and the problems stemming from special terminology, abbreviations and typos have so far prevented the development of language tools suitable for hospital use. To solve this problem, health care providers, technology suppliers, researchers in health care and language technology and Turku Science Park Ltd teamed up and established the IKITIK Consortium in (IKITIK is an abbreviation of the Finnish words for Information and Language Technology for Health Information and Communication). The toolbox for Clinical Finnish supplied by the IKITIK Consortium to Turku University Hospital is the first language tool package ever tested in a real hospital environment. Its features include a spell checker for nursing language, dictionary and terminology searches directly from the text with a mouseclick and the possibility to generate discipline-specific terminology sets. The staff at Turku University Hospital s paediatric ward found the toolbox very useful, which is an encouragement to carry on further testing and development. - If these applications enable us to improve the quality of patient records, it could have a massive impact on everyday nursing, says Sanna Salanterä, Professor of Clinical Nursing at the University of Turku, who is also one of the creators of the IKITIK consortium. IKITIK has taken us a step closer to a future, where IT and language technology applications improve the understandability and usability of patient records and thus promote health and ensure care quality. This would be a huge improvement to the current situation, where the possibilities of textual records are largely unutilised in patient care and medical research. In many other workplaces, such as libraries, archives with sophisticated language tools have been making work easier for a long time now. IKITIK Consortium thinks that the staff in health care deserve no less. - We are not happy until we have a set of tools that enable us to sift through thousands and thousands of narrative patient records and detect which treatments are effective and which are not, outlines Salanterä. The ICT Committee of Turku Chamber of Commerce nominated IKITIK Consortium as the ICT Achievement of the Year in Southwestern Finland in 2009.

17 CASE: When IT causes pain TUTKA comes to rescue The TUTKA TM service concept that offers help in IT-related problems to small and medium enterprises in Southwest Finland has proven very effective. One of Tutka s first customers was Tietoteema Oy, whose CEO Antti Kari praises the help his company received. Consequently, it became evident that the TUTKA experts have something to offer even to an IT company. Tietoteema Oy s CEO Antti Kari ended up using Turku Science Park Ltd s TUTKA service, because its advertisement happened to arrive in his inbox just at the right time: at a moment when Tietoteema s CRM system needed to be improved. It is precisely situations like these that TUTKA TM has been created for. Funded by the EU and tailored by Turku Science Park Ltd, the service employs IT professionals who help companies in Southwest Finland by offering solutions to IT problems and advice on how to develop e-business. The VAT-free price of TUTKA is 1,550 euros, but due to the EU-funding, the companies only have to pay 200 euros. - TUTKA s price-quality ratio was very good, says Antti Kari. The pain was gone in four hours TUTKA is a service open to all small and medium businesses regardless of their line of business it is especially intended for companies that are completely at a loss what comes to IT. In sharp contrast, Tietoteema Oy was an exotic customer for TUTKA, because the company offers IT solutions itself and solves its own customers problems every day. Kari invented a novel way to use the TUTKA service: he turned to TUTKA s experts for a second opinion. Kari already had a vision on how the company should develop its CRM system, but he thought he could benefit from the additional expertise at TUTKA. And he was right. - The TUTKA consultant confirmed the correctness of our vision, and even more. When I described him our problem, the solution became clearer to myself too, says Kari. The TUTKA consultant recommended that the company acquire an open source CRM system that would need to be integrated with the already existing project management, workgroup and financial software at Tietoteema. Kari agreed with the consultant that this would reduce manual work and the possibility for operational error, and would make it easier to maintain a customer register. Tietoteema would save time and money. Business would become more efficient. - I can recommend the TUTKA service to others too. I would say that many companies would benefit from TUTKA even more than we did. After all, we already had IT expertise in-house, reminds Kari. From Tietoteema s perspective, Kari found TUTKA to be a trouble-free process. The TUTKA consultant visited the company, discussed matters with Kari and returned after two weeks with the final report. That was it. The entire process took only 4 hours of Kari s time. Did you know that according to research, small and medium enterprises spend a whole working day solving IT-related problems every week? 17

18 Centre of Expertise Centre of Expertise and international operations The Southwest Finland Centre of Expertise is the Turku branch of Finland s national Centre of Expertise Cluster Programme. The Centre of Expertise is managed by Turku Science Park Ltd, which is responsible for the regional implementation of the national centre of expertise programme. For many years now, the Southwest Finland Centre of Expertise has been the primary organisation for fostering a productive environment for innovation in the City of Turku and the region. The purpose of the Centre of Expertise Programme is to encourage Finnish cities and their surrounding regions to concentrate on their strengths. Expertise found in Southwest Finland is represented in five clusters: HealthBIO, Maritime, Tourism and Experience Management, Food Development and Forest Industry Future. The first two clusters are coordinated nationwide from Turku: Machine Technology Centre Turku Oy coordinates the maritime cluster, while Turku Science Park Ltd is responsible for HealthBIO. Year 2009 was fairly successful for the Southwest Finland Centre of Expertise: many programmes that had been delayed were finally completed. The Centre of Expertise Committee operating under the Ministry of Employment and the Economy recognised the achievements of the Southwest Finland Centre of Expertise by granting it a basic funding of euros for 2010, in spite of the recession. University of Turku s Functional Foods Forum, local coordinator of food development participates in the Sapuska programme led by the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation (Tekes). Sapuska s aim is to support small and medium enterprises in the food industry in finding channels to foreign markets, which will eventually boost the export of Finnish foods. To meet this goal, FFF has created a comprehensive expert matrix of the development organisations in Southwest Finland and Satakunta area, which will help food companies to find just the right developers for their needs. The companies can also participate in an internationalisation programme that improves their ability to operate in foreign markets. The training content of the programme has been created by FFF and Turku Science Park Ltd. A development programme for transistor technology, Flex-Sens, was launched in the Forestry Cluster at the initiative of Southwestern Finland s Forest Industry Future Centre of Expertise (FIF) with funding received from Tekes. FIF s responsibility will be novel materials and printing surfaces. The goal of the programme is to create a general development and production platform for mass-produced cheap transistors. Also Finland Futures Research Centre at the University of Turku completed its multi-volume report on the future of the forest cluster in Finland. The report was written at the suggestion of FIF, and was received enthusiastically by the forest cluster. Turku Touring belongs to the Tourism and Experience cluster and participates in two programmes that develop culture tourism. The Culture Chain programme is preparing a user-centered national Culture DQN quality programme for culture tourism and a networked product development model for the tourism service providers. Cultural Tourism 2011 programme, on the other hand, is a joint programme between the cities of Turku and Tallinn, where practical tools are developed to create a comprehensive experience for tourists. In addition, the Tourism and Experience Management Centre of Expertise completed the Experience Labs programme, where tourists experiences were collected and used as the basis of product development. Turku Touring and Turku Science Park Ltd coordinated the programme nationwide. 18

19 International operations There were less international contacts in 2009 than in the previous year. The emphasis of international activities was in Slovakia. The Ministry of Education of the Slovak Republic and Turku Science Park Ltd arranged three official visits. A Slovakian delegation visited Turku in February, which resulted in two consultation meetings where the officials of the Slovakian Ministry of Education were given training on the development of innovation systems. Turku Science Park Ltd. also stayed in touch with the International Association of Science Parks (IASP) and participated in some of its events. It is also worth noting that in 2009, Turku Science Park Ltd initiated discussions on cooperation with the world s largest science park, the Dutch Zernike Group. For more information, please contact: Turku Science Park Ltd / Centre of Expertise and International Operations, Vice President N. Tapani Saarinen, tel

20 Centre of Expertise CASE: Experience Labs probes the tourists minds It is easy for people to describe their subjective experiences with many adjectives, but it is much harder to record those experiences and turn them into objective information. The Tourism and Experience Management Cluster of Expertise took the challenge and initiated a programme called Experience Labs, where experiences collected from tourists are used as raw data in product development in tourism. Experience Labs uses the the living lab methods to create a product development laboratory for tourism that can be used in everyday environment. The living lab concept collects ideas directly from users and uses them to guide product development. The users experiences are used to design products that are as customer-oriented as possible. - We believe that a product tailored to the users needs will be more successful in the market, says Satu Kantola, Project Manager at Turku Science Park Ltd. While the programme has been coordinated nationally by Turku Science Park Ltd and Tourism and Experience Management Centre of Expertise of Southwest Finland, the entire Tourism and Experience Management Cluster of Expertise has participated in its implementation. Centres of Expertise of Southwestern Finland, Uusimaa, Lapland, Jyväskylä Region and Savonlinna each had their own area of responsibility in the project. At Uusimaa, the task was to define who are the target groups and how they can be reached (customer profiling and customer paths). The staff at Jyväskylä Centre pondered how to obtain the needed information from the target groups (sensible information gathering methods). The Lapland Centre investigated the limits governing the use and dissemination of information collected (intellectual property rights issues). In Southwest Finland, the employees thought about the ways how the collected information can be utilised in the development of products and services. The Savonlinna Centre developed a Web-based communications platform for storing the information and discussing about it (pilot project for a social media application). The purpose of the programme is that after all this development, organisations operating in tourism would have at their disposal a product development lab all necessary information and tools needed for developing any kind of tourism product anywhere in Finland. Experience Labs offers something that the tourism companies have never before had: reliable and up-to-date information on what the users think about their experience. This opens up new possibilities in product development. Even the information gathered during the project so far has already given important insight on the wishes and hopes of tourists. - A notable point is that individuality is important for tourists. Tourists do not want to be treated like an anonymous mass of people. A small thing can make a big impression. People with children hope that their children are taken into account, for example by simply talking to them. People are also very pleased if they are greeted with their native language, says Kantola. 20

21 CASE: A survival guide for the paper and pulp addicted A report on the future of the Finnish forest industry, written at the initiative of Southwest Finland s Forest Industry Future Centre of Expertise (FIF), challenges the Finnish forest cluster to climb over the mountains of paper and pulp into a world of sustainable development. Researchers Marko Ahvenainen and Olli Hietanen from the Finland Futures Research Centre at the University of Turku and the grand old man of graphic industry Heikki Huhtanen state in their multi-volume report that the emphasis of research and development must be moved from the traditional linear development of bulk products and production processes to products and services that have a high added value. The three researchers want to make it loud and clear: the survival of our forest cluster depends on the extension of product ranges and on the non-linear development of entirely new business sectors. The report outlines a future where the borderlines of forest, welfare, communications, and ICT clusters have become blurred. The clusters have become networked and, as a consequence, new innovations arise at the interfaces. Ahvenainen, Hietanen and Huhtanen are not holding back, but instead let their imaginations run wild when visualizing these future innovations on products and services. Emphasis on packaging and small and medium enterprises The report notes that as far as materials and packages are concerned, the future is already here - an observation that needs immediate attention. It is packaging where the forest cluster, printing and communications most naturally come together. Globalisation and e-commerce have increased the importance of logistics as a supplementary cluster, which is why Ahvenainen, Hietanen and Huhtanen predict that the first smart materials and products produced by the forest cluster will be used in the packaging industry. There will be a demand for smart packaging that can detect spoiled goods or monitor transport. The report lists a series of actions that Turku Science Park Ltd - with its special emphasis on materials research - and the Southwest Finland Centre of Expertise should take to keep Turku at the forefront of this development. Ahvenainen, Hietanen and Huhtanen also criticise the Finnish system of innovations which in their opinion concentrates too much on existing products. We should favour customer-oriented development programmes and boldly start creating new products and services. Instead of serving the needs of large corporations, Ahvenainen, Hietanen and Huhtanen crave for an innovation system that would offer small and medium enterprises more funding for R&D. Small and medium enterprises are fast, flexible and open to new ideas. They are a key factor in the non-linear innovation process, since the commercialisation of ideas starts out in small volumes. We need new structures and new kinds of information. The new tools might not be suitable for the current industry. A broken sword is forged anew in smaller smithies. Over hotter, more passionate coals. N. Tapani Saarinen in his preface to the report Älykkäänä kotona pitempään ( Stay at home longer and smarter ). 21

22 Business development Business development The mission of Turku Science Park Ltd s business development is to develop growth companies that are based on expertise and technology. The services include an evaluation for new business ideas, a pre-incubator for the preparation of business operations and the actual incubator service for the startup period of a company. New services introduced in 2009 were growth company services for already existing companies. In addition, two incubator units, Bio-incubator and Business Center DIO, offer premises and reception services. Nine companies reached the end of their incubator phase in new business ideas were evaluated as candidates for the business incubator; two thirds of them were admitted to further development which will prepare the ideas and companies for the actual business incubator phase. Five new companies started in the business incubator: three ICT companies and two Life Sciences companies. The incubator consisted of 27 startup companies in They generated a combined turnover of over 4.5 million euros and employed over 80 people. Typical goals in the incubator phase are securing funding, succeeding in product development and reaching the markets. In 2009, the recession made the business environment challenging by e.g. making it more difficult to obtain funding. Nevertheless, 1.1 million euros of external funding were received, of which about 0.5 million euros was external equity exposures to four companies. Cooperation with the universities in Turku and the Turku University of Applied Sciences continued with the TULI projects that search and refine business ideas that stem from scientific research. Among our services were activation events and seminars as well as evaluation and development services for business ideas. One new research-based company was started in the incubator in In October 2009, the Finnish Science Park Association launched its SME National Growth Programme. Its services are implemented in Southwest Finland by Turku Science Park Ltd. The programme evaluates the growth potential of companies, creates a development programme for achieving the growth and provides financing for the planned development actions. Seven companies participate in the programme. Turku Science Park Ltd s Business Development operates in a networked way, its most important cooperation partners being other providers of expert services, public and private financiers such as venture capital investors, other science parks, universities and public business service providers. In 2009 we were also the regional coordinator of the Venture Cup business plan competition and participated in the arrangement of Boost it Up business idea competition. The most important public financier of the business incubator was Turku Area Development Centre. For more information, please contact: Turku Science Park Ltd / Business Development, Director Olli Mankonen, tel

23 CASE: IT Mill Ltd. has the courage to succeed The user interface technology supplier IT Mill Ltd. has sailed under a lucky star in recent years. CEO Joonas Lehtinen says the boom started in 2006 when the key people at IT Mill mustered up their courage and started to market their technology internationally. Joonas Lehtinen, IT Mill Oy There has been no stopping of IT Mill Ltd. of late. IT Mill, established in Turku Science Park Ltd s business incubator a decade ago, produces user interface technology and services for creating browser-based software, and during the last couple of years the company has set a record which is tough to beat. The company s turnover has increased by a whopping 50% a year since 2007, which triggered Deloitte to include IT Mill on its list of Top 50 Fastest Growing Finnish High-Tech Companies in In September 2008, IT Mill announced that Michael Monty Widenius, the IT guru who earned his fortunes by selling MySQL, will invest in IT Mill and begin to develop its open source business. In April 2009, Turku Chamber of Commerce awarded IT Mill the ICT Achievement of 2009 prize. And the latest merit is from February 2010, when the Great Place to Work institute listed IT Mill among the Top Ten Finnish Workplaces in the series under 50 employees. Obviously, then, IT Mill is on the fast track, and that is the way the company CEO Joonas Lehtinen wants it. Lehtinen recalls, that IT Mill did not get anywhere by taking it slow. The company launched its first open source product Millstone, currently known as Vaadin, already in 2002, but the results left a lot to be desired. - We did not have the money to achieve our growth potential. And we avoided risks. We should have been bolder as entrepreneurs. In 2006 we received external capital and started taking more risks. In 2007 we put the pedal to the metal, reminisces Lehtinen. Now IT Mill is a growth company with a turnover of two million euros and 39 employees. The incubator offered security After flooring the pedal IT Mill has gone far, but back in 2000 it was a budding company that was learning the ropes of business life at the Turku Science Park Ltd s business incubator. Therefore, Lehtinen is just the right person to evaluate where IT Mill would be without Turku Science Park s business development services. Would the company even exist? Lehtinen replies that in the early 2000s he was so enthusiastic about becoming an entrepreneur that IT Mill Ltd surely would have been established even without Turku Science Park Ltd. However, he believes that without the incubator phase, IT Mill would have experienced a much rougher start. - The threshold to start a technology company was lowered by having someone solve the everyday matters for us. I am sure we would have found solutions to these questions ourselves, too, but that would have taken more time, which would have been better spent in concentrating in key issues, ponders Lehtinen. Lehtinen thinks the sparring in the incubator phase is necessary for a beginning entrepreneur. - It is good to have your plans evaluated by an outside person. An entrepreneur must be able to review his/her plans critically, and sparring forces you to do it, says Lehtinen. 23

24 Business development CASE: SXG Finland Ltd was born from the recession The global recession killed many Finnish companies, but new life is already emerging in the ruins. SXG Finland Ltd was born when its founders, who had lost their jobs due to recession, decided to take matters into their own hands. The company currently operates in Turku Science Park s business incubator. When the Oulu-based technology company Elektrobit announced the closure of its Turku unit in October 2009, the head of the unit, Hannu Ylinen, could have stayed at home claiming unemployment benefit. Instead, he invited some of his colleagues for a discussion. Together they arrived at the conclusion that there must be somebody somewhere who could use their expertise. - We all have over 15 years of expertise in the mobile phone business at Elektrobit and Ericsson, says Ylinen. This gave birth to the idea of establishing SXG Finland Ltd (SXG = System Expert Group). The company s business plan was drawn up by Ylinen and his colleagues, together with Olli Mankonen, who is the director of Turku Science Park Ltd s business development. SXG would be a consulting company that would offer mobile network suppliers and operators expert services in e.g. systems design, management of large projects and offshore coordination. The company s customer acquisition could start for example in China. - There are many new companies in the field in China, but they lack our 15 years of experience, so that is where we decided to start. When we received a positive signal from China in mid-september, we submitted SXG to the trade register, says Ylinen. Science Park gave us the crucial nudge Now, six months later, the concept of SXG has become a reality. The company is currently operating in DIO Business Center and has already consulted its first customers. In February, SXG found a partner for offshore activities at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. If everything goes according to CEO Ylinen s plans, five years from now SXG will employ experts who serve a global customer base. - And at some point we will launch a product of our own. We already have some ideas, but we must strengthen our financial position before embarking on product development. We still have time to look for the killer idea. Coffee breaks are a great opportunity for brainstorming, reveals Ylinen. Ylinen praises the assistance the SXG received as it took its first steps under the wings of Turku Science Park s business incubator. In addition to business premises, Science Park provided valuable information on where to obtain support. In SXG s case, for example, the Foundation for Finnish Inventions gave financial support for the creation of the company s business plan. Even more important in Ylinen s view is the psychological support that the Science Park business developers provided. Founding a company is a tough decision to make, and Ylinen confesses that it took him six months before he dared to do it. - You can always make plans, but registering the company in the Trade Register felt intimidating, since after that there is no turning back. It was important to hear a business developer s realistic opinion on whether our business plan has a chance to succeed. It nudged us across the threshold. It made us feel that hey, this could actually work, praises Ylinen. 24

25 BIOCELEX LTD Biocelex Ltd Biocelex Ltd was founded in July 2007 and began operating on September 1st At the end of 2009, the shareholders were Turku Science Park Ltd (59%), Karolinska Institutet Holding AB (26%), Turku District Cooperative Bank (10%) and company management (5%). During 2009, Biocelex Ltd concentrated on growth. The company s core business is the search of innovations in Finland, sales of business development services and coordination of the Tekes Pharma programme that will last for the next two years. The company had three employees at the end of fiscal year Development of innovations Development of innovations consists of the search for emerging Life Science ideas and innovations in Southwestern Finland and the entire country, preliminary evaluation of their commercial potential and the presentation of the innovations to the Karolinska evaluation process for decisions. Biocelex Ltd follows the model of innovation development created by Karolinska Institutet Innovations AB. The model has been modified to fit the Finnish Life Science sector and it has proven effective when applied to potential innovations. Biocelex Ltd pre-evaluated and presented its Swedish partners (Karolinska Institutet Innovations AB and Karolinska Development AB) several Finnish Life Science innovations as potential targets for investments. Business development services Business development services include strategic planning, productification, internationalisation and the funding process. Biocelex Ltd sells related business development services mainly to Finnish organisations in the Life Sciences field. Potential customers include startup companies, growing companies and institutions and even large, established organisations. For more information, please contact: Biocelex Ltd, CEO Kai Lahtonen, tel

26 Communications and marketing Communications and marketing The strategic task of Turku Science Park Ltd s Communications and Marketing Department is to assist in managing the company and in achieving its goals. Integrated communications and marketing builds the community brand and strives to make the clusters (BioTurku and ICT Turku) and the Science Park area more appealing nationally and internationally. A unified Turku Science Park (TScP) brand that was adopted as a part of the new operating model in the autumn of 2007 is one of the factors that attract companies to locate their operations in the TScP. The Communication and Marketing department of Turku Science Park Ltd plans, consults, coordinates and implements marketing communication services and evaluates the effectiveness of communications. The primary means are community-wide media relations, Internet communication, sales and marketing materials, centralised building of the TScP image, brand management, cluster-based targeted marketing, events and other activities that strengthen the community of local organisations. The core services consist of TScP communications and cluster marketing (BioTurku, ICT Turku), both of which support Turku Science Park s regional communications and marketing. Media relations and articles Last year, the communications department published 125 news articles and kept TScP s media visibility as one of the highest among Finnish science parks. The local companies were offered language and distribution services for press releases. The communications department produced articles for international Life Science publications as well as stories and features about Turku Science Park for different kinds of printed materials published by partners. For the second year in a row, the department published a monthly column titled on a Science Park Bench in the business supplement of the local newspaper Turun Sanomat. The column dealt with the competitive ability of the TScP area, the Finnish university reform and TScP s premises. A more relaxed viewpoint to the premises and Science Park was presented in the Amish event on April 1st which was carried out in social media and in cooperation with the editorial staff of Turun Sanomat. TScP s publications and communications materials A 36-page annual report was published in the spring and was mailed with a brochure marketing the area premises to 1,500 regional and national technology organizations. The annual report in English was also distributed widely. Turku Science Park website was developed by adding content produced in-house and by setting up completely new pages for the premises. The site received approximately 7,000 hits a month. Also, a new Person of the month section, which introduces a person working in Turku Science Park in the field of research or business, was launched. The electronic publication for stakeholders, espark, was published 11 times, supplemented by the online Spark web magazine. In addition, Turku Science Park s Info at the lobby of the BioCity building served all visitors by giving them guidance and handing out publications about the Science Park. Visitors and cooperation with Invest in Finland In 2009, approximately 300 people visited Turku Science Park, half of whom were from abroad. We presented them our company as well as the TScP concept, and, of course, the premises for those who were interested in locating their company in the Science Park area. Among the interested organisations were foreign companies from e.g. India and Russia. Visitors included journalist delegations too. The Turku Science Park area has been marketed as an attractive location for companies, the primary selling point being the expertise in 26 For more information, please contact: Turku Science Park Ltd, Communications and Marketing Director, Katja Wallenlind, tel

27 Social media consists of content, communities and Web 2.0. The content must be socially produced or at least shared. The most famous social media applications are blogs and especially Facebook, which has over 300 million users. Other renowned social media sites are Youtube, Twitter, Wikipedia, various discussion forums, IRC-Galleria and Habbo Hotel. Social media is on everyone s lips today. It represents a change in communications channels and responds to the basic human (and corporate) need to get attention. At its best, social media fosters creative dialogue and is a powerful tool for engaging partners and customers. Turku Science Park Ltd teamed up with the local newspaper Turun Sanomat and set up an April Fool s joke in social media. The result was a surprise in the middle of an ordinary working day. In spite of rumours, the carrot plantations of American Amishes have not yet been planted, but the April Fool s joke made people smile and effectively engaged Turku Science Park Ltd s partners, too. cooperation between companies and universities. In addition to our own marketing, especially BioTurku, we have collected information about the companies in the area for various purposes requested by the Invest in Finland organisation. The City of Turku approved its Competence and Business Strategy at the end of the year. The strategy places the responsibility for attracting foreign investments to Turku Science Park Ltd. Arranging events and fostering the community spirit The Communication and Marketing Department, together with its business partners, continued to arrange the monthly SPARKling (Science PARK) Wednesday events aimed at business and university staff working in r&d as well as at companies taking their first steps at the Science Park. The themes revolved around intellectual property rights and marketing communications, which are strategically crucial for any organisation. The event networks people from various fields and strengthens the Science Park identity. The Communication and Marketing Department negotiated and managed the Spark benefits offered to TScP tenants. For example, a travel agency, an airline, and some hotel and conference service providers give discounts which are presented in Spark Benefits events and also otherwise communicated to businesses and communities. Turku Science Park Ltd wants to help its new tenants to feel like a part of the community. We tell them about the services in the area, and the general development projects and strive to give media visibility to the companies who have located themselves in the Science Park. Two events were held for our partners in one was associated with the Tall Ships Race hosted by Turku in July and the other was the traditional Independent Finland Freedom to Innovate event a day before Independence Day in December. In total, the events attracted nearly 300 visitors. Projects, companies, phenomena and people in the field of expertise and science rarely make big headlines. Startup companies are busy starting up their operations and researchers are occupied with their work. Both feel that communicating is cumbersome and less important. This is not surprising, considering the fact that media organisations have less and less time and resources to familiarise themselves with complex disciplines and trends. Turku Science Park Ltd s Communications and Marketing Department wants to help its partners by popularising science and publishing stories about the everyday life of startup companies. Our job is not easy either, but rewarding and important it is: we have the privilege of being at the core of Finnish competitiveness. And we have the added bonus of interacting with smart people. 27

28 Communications and marketing Case: April Fool s the Amish as real estate marketers Turku Science Park s promise the catalyst for innovative growth - does not allow the Communications and Marketing Department to rest on their laurels. The number of channels and the amount of communication keep on growing while the media is placing more and more emphasis on entertainment. This means that we must work harder to ensure that our targeted communication stays interesting. Social media is a hot topic, but it does not feel natural for us to try to collect a large number of fans in a social media site. While we pondered about these things, the Amish stepped in to help. 28 The April Fool s joke consisted of the arrival of anti-technological American Amishes who were looking for land for their new carrot plot, and ended up as tenants in the Turku Bio Valley. Self-ironically, the target was the Focu building, owned by Turku Science Park and originally constructed as a drug factory. At the end of March, we uploaded amateurish video clips to Youtube where Amishes in their horse wagon rode past the Turku Castle and ended up in Turku Science Park, asking for directions to Turku Bio Valley. The Amish handed out carrots and leaflets that advertised the website When the partners of Turku Science Park Ltd received the tailored messages and video links, they were delighted and developed the story further. One of the CEOs felt pity for the newcomers. After all, the Science Park hosts the Machine Technology Centre, which must be hell on Earth for the Amish. On April 1st, the newspaper Turun Sanomat ran a story about the members of a religious sect who had arrived in Turku Bio Valley in their 19th century clothes and wanted to establish a carrot cultivation business in the Focu building. The CEO of Turku Science Park Ltd had nothing against it as long as the new tenants pay their bills on time. The story mentioned that the Amish will present their activity on the morning of April 1st in front of the Pharmacy Museum, and some curious people did show up. At least some of them did not realise it was a joke, since a lively conversion in English started up with the Amish concerning e.g. the benefits of locally grown food. Baskets of carrots were placed at the lobbies of buildings in the Turku Science Park area, together with a note in which the carrot cultivation business was described in broken Finnish and the reader was directed to for more information. The site and next day s Turun Sanomat revealed the plot: Turku Science Park offers surprising possibilities. Even though the foreign visitors did not stay, the Science Park contains premises for all purposes and lines of business. The Amish were harnessed as marketers of business premises in cooperation with the advertising agency ID BBN. The actors were from Turun Nuori Teatteri and the horse came from Urjala.

29 Turku Science Park in the headlines in 2009 Social media sites were posted videos showing a beautiful horse pulling a wagonful of Amishes. The newspaper Turun Sanomat reported that the Amish sect, known for its antitechnology attitude, has settled in the Turku Bio Valley with hopes of establishing a carrot business. On the morning of April 1st, the Amish handed out product samples in front of the Pharmacy Museum. Conversations in English took place, concerning for example the benefits of locallygrown food. Nordic ID expands its operations into Russia (26 Jan 2009) Lingsoft becomes Microsoft Gold Certified Partner (3 Feb 2009) BioTie started clinical trials on arthritis patients (23 Feb 2009) Companies in Turku open connections to Hong Kong (5 Mar 2009) Abacus Diagnostica receives venture capital, expands operations (23 Mar 2009) Karolinska Development invests in EvoStem (7 Apr 2009) IT Mill Ltd. wins the ICT Achievement 2009 prize (24 Apr 2009) 2009 started well for HyTest (19 May 2009) BioCis Pharma starts patient trials of a new cancer drug (26 May 2009) Innomedica offers a new service product for commercialisation (4 Jun 2009) Knowledge of cancer cell movement offers new possibilities for drug development (30 Jun 2009) ArcDia ready for extensive swine flu screening (12 Aug 2009) World s top cancer researchers meet at Turku BioCity (19 Aug 2009) Hormos Medical applies for a sales permit for its drug innovation (10 Sep 2009) Medbase signs an important international agreement (11 Sep 2009) GenoSyst s project among the four best Eurostars programmes (17 Sep 2009) Orion adopts DelSiTech s drug dosing technology (7 Oct 2009) The new TCBC research centre starts operations (30 Oct 2009) Strong growth in Finnish drug exports (16 Nov 2009) BCB Medical obtains funding from Tekes (20 Nov 2009) Southwest Finland Centre of Expertise about to get the funding requested (4 Dec 2009) Turku-based innovations successful in Venture Cup (17 Dec 2009) 29

30 Premises Premises for innovative growth Turku Science Park is one of the first and largest science parks in Finland. The concentration of science and technology companies stretches from the university hill to the Bio Valley at Lauste. This strip-like area of 5 square kilometres is located by the Turku Helsinki motorway and railway and consists of over a dozen technology buildings with over 250,000 m² of premises for businesses and research communities in all stages of development and lines of business. The excellent universities at the Science Park are located close to each other and Turku Science Park Ltd s business development services and incubators offer a solid base for high tech companies in the startup phase. This sufficiently large but compact concentration of science and business forms an urban, internationally competitive whole. DataCity Turku Science Park took its first steps with the construction of DataCity. ElectroCity The old Silo industrial building was renovated and expanded as premises for high tech companies. BioCity Year completed: 1989 Floor area: 46,000 m 2 Floors: 7 Address: Lemminkäisenkatu 14-18, FI Turku, FINLAND Renting of premises and further information: Bo Sangder, Year completed: 1990 Floor area: 16,000 m 2 Floors: 7 Address: Tykistökatu 4, FI Turku, FINLAND Renting of premises and further information: Bo Sangder, When BioCity was completed in the early 1990s, it was Finland s first modern biotech centre. Year completed: 1992 Floor area: 37,000 m 2 Floors: 7 Address: Tykistökatu 6, FI Turku, FINLAND Renting of premises and further information: Bo Sangder,

31 EuroCity The businesses in EuroCity operate in many different fields.the six floors of the building have now been joined with hallways to ElectroCity and the buildings themselves are joined by a glass-roofed lobby that houses a lunch restaurant. Year completed: 1999 Floor area: 21,000 m 2 Floors: 6 Address: Joukahaisenkatu 1, FI Turku, FINLAND Renting of premises and further information: Bo Sangder, PharmaCity The PharmaCity building offers modern premises designed especially for the needs of pharmaceutical and Life Sciences industry. Kiinteistö Oy Focu Year completed: 2001 Floor area: 21,000 m 2 Floors: 7 Address: Itäinen Pitkäkatu 4, FI Turku, FINLAND Renting of premises and further information: Bo Sangder, or Rikumatti Levomäki, Located in the Turku Bio Valley, the Focu was constructed as a drug factory with highquality laboratory, storage and office premises. Year completed: 2002 Floor area: 9,436 m², with technical premises added: 13,600 m² Address: Biolinja, FI Turku, FINLAND Renting of premises and further information: Rikumatti Levomäki,

32 Activities of the Board Activities of the Board Chairperson of the Board Tom von Weymarn: Turku Science Park Ltd s Board of Directors consists of Finnish topclass business managers with international experience. The board has considerable experience and expertise in the Science Park s business areas and strives to keep a working balance between the main stakeholders universities and businesses and representatives of the City of Turku. An efficient management system, open communication and accurate reporting are central elements in Science Park s corporate governance. A central theme in the Board s activities has been to combine expertise in various fields to create an even more effective Board and thus strengthen the company s corporate governance. Turku Science Park Ltd s Board of Directors (since 5 September 2005) Chairpersons of the Board: Tom von Weymarn, Chairperson of the Board, also a Chairperson of the Board at Sibelius- Academy and Lännen Tehtaat Plc. Tero Hirvilammi, Vice Chairperson of the Board, former Deputy Mayor of Turku responsible for the city s competence and business development affairs Members of the Board: Pauliina de Anna, Member of Turku City Council Rabbe Klemets, Oy L-S Link Ab, Chairperson of the Board at Klemets Management Oy Seppo Lehtinen, Vice Chairperson of the Turku City Council Björn Mattsson, vuorineuvos (Finnish honorary title), Chairperson of the Board at Nordkalk Corporation. Aleksi Randell, Chairperson of Turku City Council Matti K. Viljanen, professor emeritus, former Vice Rector at University of Turku responsible for the university s research activities 32

33 Income statement and balance sheet 2009 Income statement and balance sheet 2009 INCOME STATEMENT 2008 INCOME STATEMENT 2009 turnover 8,769, turnover 8,122, materials and services -1,630, materials and services -1,347, personnel expenses -2,711, personnel expenses -2,661, depreciation and amortisation -1,127, depreciation and amortisation -1,027, other expenses -4,103, other expenses -4,049, operating loss -902, operating loss -847, financial income and expenses -430, financial income and expenses -449, net result -1,333, net result -1,297, BALANCE SHEET BALANCE SHEET Assets: Assets: fixed and other long-term assets 28,615, fixed and other long-term assets 28,067, inventories and short-term assets 10,779, inventories and short-term assets 7,920, total assets 39,395, total assets 35,987, Liabilities Liabilities equity 19,993, equity 18,696, liabilities 19,401, liabilities 17,291, total liabilities 39,395, total liabilities 35,987, Personnel 43 Personnel 42 33

34 Catalyst for innovative growth Turku Science Park a catalyst for innovative growth University of Turku and Turku School of Economics merged on January The new university has nearly 21,000 students and employs over 3,000 people. As the multidisciplinary activity at the University of Turku joins forces with with business expertise, science and business in the city get a powerful boost. Two universities that conduct scientific research: University of Turku and Åbo Akademi University Turku University of Applied Sciences, Diaconia University of Applied Sciences Turku University Hospital TYKS Main lines of business: biotechnology and applied ICT 17,500 employees 30,500 students 400 professors over 300 companies and organisations over 250,000 m 2 of completed premises in five square kilometres Over a dozen technology buildings by the Helsinki motorway, right next to Kupittaa railway station, a walking distance from the city centre Less than 30 minutes drive to an airport with international connections 34