Medical Research

In medical research, Munich has traditionally been a top contender. Nobel price winners in medicine, physiology and chemistry – e.g., Feodor Lynen, Karl von Frisch, Konrad Lorenz or Adolf Butenandt – have performed important research in the Munich region.

The hospitals operated by Munich’s Ludwig-Maximilians-University and the Technical University of Munich are closely linked to both universities’ medical departments. Many lecturers also work in clinical research. In nutritional medicine in particular, industry co-operates closely with the Technical University and supports research, e.g. by financing academic chairs. This ensures that new medical findings and modern treatment methods will be quickly and directly available to Munich’s hospitals.

In the last decade, Munich evolved into Germany’s most successful biotechnology region. It is considered one of the leading locations for biotechnology world-wide. One hundred biotechnology companies – most of them small or medium-sized – and more than twenty larger pharmaceutical companies are clustered in the Munich metropolitan area. First and foremost, they are committed to medical and pharmaceutical development and applied biotechnology, so-called red biotechnology, as well as bio-computer science, and biotechnological device and reagent manufacturing. Additional important elements of the Munich medical competence centre include renowned research institutions such as the Max Planck Institutes of Biochemistry and Neurobiology, Grosshadern General Hospital and Klinikum Rechts der Isar Hospital, various scientific university departments, Munich University’s Gene Centre, the Biotechnology Innovation and Founders’ Centre, and the GSF National Research Centre for Environment and Health.