How innovative is the life science sector?

2 June 2025

Life Science Nord presents Strategy 2030 - interview with Oliver Schacht, Managing Director, and Bodo Liesenfeld, HamburgAmbassador to Boston

A glass on the table in the office on Neuer Wall in Hamburg hints at the new vibes in the Life Science Nord cluster. "I always see the glass as half full," says Oliver Schacht, who was appointed Managing Director last November. "There are huge opportunities for the industry. "We need above all a more self-confident mindset to seize them," said Schacht. Bodo Liesenfeld, HamburgAmbassador in Boston, echoes this opinion and has organised an event in the hotspot of the life sciences in the United States. Hamburg News spoke to both leaders about the new industry strategy 2030, startups, AI, tariffs, prices and pressing matters.

Hamburg News: Mr Schacht, you have just completed the Cluster Strategy 2030. What are the most important points and fields of action for the next five years?

Oliver Schacht: Our strategy, which involves stakeholders from our 300 member companies, deals with the main problems and possibilities for the biotechnology, medical technology, pharmaceutical and digital health sectors. Our priorities are raising the organisation's visibility, coming up with new ideas and transferring technology, becoming more international, especially in northern Europe i.e., Scandinavia, and the U.S., and ensuring that the organisation grows sustainably. To this end, we have set out specific means of achieving each of our goals and agreed on ways of gauging our success.

Oliver Schacht, Managing Director of Life Science Nord, seeks “more self-confident mindset”

Hamburg News: Mr. Liesenfeld, what are your tasks as honorary HamburgAmbassador to Boston appointed by the City of Hamburg?

Bodo Liesenfeld: One of our most important tasks is to make Hamburg better known, to raise its visibility abroad and to network where possible. A few years ago, for instance, I brought a life science and a venture capital company to Hamburg. At the time, it failed due to a lack of laboratory space. Today, we have an entirely different situation thanks to the innovation park in Altona, the right laboratory space and great infrastructure. There have been plenty of developments since then.

Hamburg News: What are you planning at the moment?

Bodo Liesenfeld: We are currently planning the German-American Economic Forum which will focus on the life sciences and includes top-calibre speakers as well as Hamburg's own Mr Oliver Schacht. The U.S. life science centre will open on June 6, 2025 in Boston. I set up the German-American Business Council in 2019 to boost German-American business relations. Then COVID-19 broke out, and it became a series of seven online events in 2020. Now we want to revive that.

Bodo Liesenfeld, HamburgAmbassadorin Boston, strives to make Hamburg better known abroad

Hamburg News: What are the biggest challenges facing the industry presently?

Oliver Schacht: I would like to talk more about the opportunities than the challenges. The starting position is good. We have four research associations, eight universities, two university hospitals and 14 research institutions including Fraunhofer, Helmholtz, Max Planck and Leibniz, internationally renowned large-scale research facilities such as the German Electron Synchrotron (DESY), the European XFEL and Science City Hamburg Bahrenfeld, which is unique in Germany. However, we need more investors and are working attracting them. And we also need more private capital for innovation and life sciences here in Hamburg. I am optimistic about initiatives such as the Impossible Founders.

Bodo Liesenfeld: Yet, we have to deal with a dramatic increase in uncertainty worldwide and the loss of reliability. The U.S. is planning to limit the price of medications, which means less income for producers, but offers other countries an opportunity. It can also incentivize the industry to produce certain medications in Germany.

Hamburg News: How many startups are there among your 300 member companies?

Oliver Schacht: A very significant proportion. We have around 100 biotech/pharma companies, 100 medtech firms and 100 service providers. Around half of the 100 biotech companies are startups or fledgling companies. Our task is to link up the stakeholders with each other. I am a serial founder myself and have founded eight startups in the last 27 years, mainly in the life sciences sector.

Bodo Liesenfeld (left) and Oliver Schacht (right) discuss the life science industry: “We are too modest.”

Hamburg News: Let's take another look at Boston and your collaboration. The BIO International Convention gets underway there from June 16-19, 2025. Why is it so important for the industry?

Oliver Schacht: It is the world's largest biotech industry conference with around 16,000 delegates. We need to keep innovating to make progress. I would like more people to know about these events and when government delegations go on trips. We have a lot to do in Germany! We need to speak up.

Bodo Liesenfeld: I can confirm that. That applies especially to Hamburg. We have so much to offer as a location. We are too modest.

Hamburg News: What role does AI play in the industry?

Oliver Schacht: Today, no life science startup can succeed without artificial intelligence (AI). One very successful example is the Hamburg-based Mindpeak, an AI scaleup founded in 2018. We are well placed in Hamburg with the Artificial Intelligence Center Hamburg e.V. (ARIC), which brings together all aspects of AI. We are talking to ARIC about turning research into practice as quickly as possible. We have the AI Act in Europe, and the EU is working on the EU Biotech Act. We have to be careful not to over regulate. Then, there is the question of how innovative the industry is and how innovative it can be. We need this level of basic optimism. As I said, things are going well

Hamburg News: Thanks very much for the inspiring interview and good luck with your events.

Interview by Karolin Köcher

Sources and further information

LSN Strategy 2030

Life Science Nord

The Life Science Nord (LSN) cluster consists of some 600 companies, research facilities and institutions in the medtech, biotech and pharmaceutical sector in Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein. Around 300 are members of associations. More than 55,000 employees in the vicinity of the sector generated a gross value added of EUR 5.7 billion in 2021. Suppliers employ another 31,000 staff. Thus, gross value added has probably reached EUR 6 billion, the cluster estimates.