 Nettie Buitelaar, managing director of the Leiden Bio Science Park foundation, perceives the award to be a great stimulus for continuing the chosen direction.
Leiden Bio Science Park is celebrating her 25th anniversary this year. Since 1984, the park has grown into the largest biomedical life science park in the Netherlands, hosting approximately 60 companies. These companies range from listed multinationals to young start-ups that are involved in the development of innovative medicines, therapies and medical devices.
Double celebration
Marc Witteman, alderman of the city of Leiden states: ‘Obviously, this is a dream for every alderman of Economic Affairs. For 25 years, many people - from the University of Leiden, but also entrepreneurs, researchers and the local authorities - have put a lot of energy in the development of Leiden Bio Science Park. We are the largest life science cluster of the Netherlands, and we rank number 5 in Europe. As from today we can add that we are the best business park of the Netherlands. And all of this in Leiden too - the city that is key to discovery - that is tremendous!’
Election
A selection of 121 business parks in total contested for the award for Best Business Park in the Netherlands. Three of them were nominated in the category ‘Existing Business Park’; Industrial park Moerdijk, Business park Borchwerf in Roosendaal and Leiden Bio Science Park. On October 8th the winner was announced at the National Business park Congress in Venlo by Jérome Verhagen, director of the NV Industrial Bank Liof.
Keeping the backs straight
The jury praised the fact that Leiden chose for a specialization in the biomedical sciences 25 years ago, a time when segmentation of business parks was not common yet. Specializing a business park was a daring choice, which has consequently been sustained for all those years. Since only life science companies are allowed to set up their company at the park , tough decisions have to be made every now and then. Keeping the backs straight has resulted in a strongly specialized cluster, and an attractive place for establishing new businesses.
Leiden Bio Science Park
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