The decade of life sciences
Globalisation is gaining in importance especially in Corona times
The bottlenecks in the supply of masks have brought many a populist proposal to public attention in recent weeks. A few opinion leaders even demanded the establishment of a mask production in Germany. Sounds logical...
Now we know that almost every mass production is better off in Asia than at European locations. This now even applies to a high-tech product such as battery cells. And of all places, do we want to produce a low-tech product like masks in Germany again? A good that is easy to transport, weighs little, takes up hardly any space. Are supply policy and contracts not supposed to be able to guarantee security of supply? I have my doubts.
Renationalization - rarely a good idea, here a particularly bad one
A look at the past also shows this. The author of these lines was involved in regional politics four decades ago. It was in a district in the bacon belt of Munich where agriculture played a major role. The author remembers well the vehemence to the point of aggressiveness with which the farmers demanded their alleged or actual rights. National security of supply was a central argument - without their own agriculture, they would quickly be starved of food from abroad in the first major political conflict.
Today, there should be a broad consensus that it makes great sense, particularly in the agricultural sector, to grow crops where the land is geographically most suitable. That creates prosperity there, but also prosperity in those places that then import the goods and produce other things that they are better at.
Incidentally, if you look at the limited power of farmers in the political debate today, you have excellent proof that vehemence and aggressiveness are not a useful tool for asserting oneself.
Life science needs global markets
The life science industry is a sector that is made for globalization like no other. Global pandemics are changing the hierarchy of needs; life and health are seen even more and on an even broader basis as the highest good.
The past few years have already brought sensational progress: skin cancer types, which a few years ago were a certain death sentence, are now easily treatable.
And there is much to suggest that the decade ahead of us will be a decade of life sciences. We will be able to treat diseases that today are still mostly fatal. Artificial intelligence and Big Data will trigger a gigantic surge in efficiency and effectiveness, and life science will be able to satisfy the real needs of the individual even more.
But the life science industry is also a fixed cost industry. Enormously high expenditures for research and development stand alongside comparatively very low production costs.
And from an economic point of view, all this only makes sense if the immense investments are matched by a corresponding sales potential - in other words, if as many people as possible can make use of the products.
In addition, there are more and more individual solutions. We are not just talking about "rare diseases" here, we are learning that there is no such thing as lung cancer or breast cancer, but that there is a complex process behind them that requires individual answers. Keywords such as Companion Diagnostics and Personalized Medicine stand for this.
This means that even in comparatively large indications, only one subpopulation at a time will be able to be meaningfully treated with a specific therapy. And some people think that we can provide the necessary sales potential with national markets?
The immense medical progress that is currently possible will only be possible if we operate internationally. Anyone who, like us, believes in the decade of the life sciences must therefore be a convinced globalisation advocate.