1/7

HCP | March 2017 | www.healthportugal.com

PORTUGAL: THE RIGHT PLACE TO INVEST AND BUILD PARTNERSHIPS IN HEALTH

The Health sector is a prominent, fast-evolving sector in Portugal, which has experienced a remarkable evolution during the last couple of decades.

‘Made in Portugal’ means quality, reliability and competitiveness. Portuguese companies

are internationally recognised as high-quality suppliers of healthcare products and services

– e.g., pharmaceuticals, medical devices and other medical technologies –, having high standards

of quality and being capable of developing, manufacturing and supplying a wide range of products

and services, with high flexibility. A consistent offer also exists in the country in terms of contract

development and manufacturing organisations, and producers of active pharmaceutical

ingredients.

The Portuguese pharmaceutical and medical device industries have grown above the country’s

average in recent years, with increasing exports to countries such as the USA, Germany, UK, Spain

and France. The Portuguese exports of goods from the health sector have grown by 125%

between 2008 and 2016, to a value of EUR 1,411 million. This includes the export of basic

pharmaceutical products (78 million), pharmaceutical preparations (1,056 million), irradiation,

electromedical and electrotherapeutic equipment (10 million), and medical and dental instruments

and supplies (266 million), not including sales of eHealth solutions and services.

Portugal has a vibrant and innovative Research & Development ecosystem, characterized by

the presence of world-class institutions and scientists – international panels of experts have

classified 13 out of 24 Portuguese Life and Health Sciences R&D Units as Exceptional, Excellent

or Very Good. The Portuguese scientific production in the areas of medical and health

sciences (includes clinical medicine, basic medicine, and health sciences), life sciences and

medical engineering has grown by 88% between 2008 and 2014, to a value of 8,158

publications – 42% of the entire scientific production of the country.

On the basis of this success is a high-quality education system, which every year graduates

thousands of well-prepared professionals in areas such as medicine, nursing, therapy and

rehabilitation, diagnostic and therapeutic technologies, biomedical sciences and pharmaceutical

sciences, to mention a few. More than 600 of these new graduations each year correspond to new

doctorates in the areas of life, medical and health sciences, and medical engineering.

Portugal also has a high-quality healthcare system, with excellent professionals and modernly

equipped. This quality is regularly assessed by an independent national regulatory organisation,

and there is a growing number of hospitals achieving international accreditation. And the ultimate

evidence of the quality of the Portuguese healthcare system consists on the country’s high-

standard health indicators.

Besides its quality, which comes side-by-side with safety and innovation, the Portuguese offer in

healthcare is also cost-competitive in several market segments. If taken together with factors such

as the country’s geographic location, its climate, its tourism, culture and leisure offer, and the

hospitality of the people, for example, these characteristics make Portugal a perfect destination

for medical tourism. This reality comprises both a public and a private component that

complement and articulate with each other, thereby making available a highly qualified and

differentiated offer.

2/7

HCP | March 2017 | www.healthportugal.com

Given the quality of Portuguese R&D institutions and hospitals, including the expertise of its human

resources and the high-end facilities, the country is very well positioned to be a competitive

supplier of specialised scientific/technological/analytical services, as well as an attractive

destination for conducting clinical trials. The number of clinical trial applications submitted to

the national competent authority has increased by 61% between 2011 and 2016.

As a result of the quality of the Portuguese health value chain, together with the attractiveness of

the investment climate in the country, well-known multinational companies have chosen

Portugal to establish production units and/or R&D centres.

Selected indicators of the Health sector in Portugal

Indicator (Unit)

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 Source

Turnover (thousand million €)

- 24.0 25.7 26.7 25.0 24.4 24.2 24.3 - -

Exports of goods (million €)

- 627 704 702 939 1,011 1,045 1,168 1,216 1,411

R&D investment (million €)

165 291 365 409 365 340 325 377 - -

R&D investment - Companies (million €)

59 100 88 103 116 114 112 120 - -

Workers in R&D activities (FTE)

2,987 5,574 5,625 5,348 5,894 5,690 5,194 5,230 - -

Researchers (FTE)

2,575 5,063 4,841 4,787 5,562 5,268 4,369 4,421 - -

Publications (no.)

3,644 4,335 5,104 5,859 6,279 7,146 8,058 8,158 - -

PhD graduations (no.)

333 361 351 415 450 534 610 - - -

Patent applications: European + PCT (no.)

15 11 17 18 21 21 39 - - -

Clinical trials authorisation applications (no.)

136 146 116 107 88 118 114 127 137 142

Source: HCP’s Tableau de Bord (http://healthportugal.com/about-us/tableau-de-bord).

3/7

HCP | March 2017 | www.healthportugal.com

Health Cluster Portugal (HCP)

The Health Cluster Portugal (HCP) (www.healthportugal.com) is a private non-profit association,

founded in 2008, that currently brings together over 170 members, including R&D institutions,

universities, hospitals, organisations from civil society, and companies in the areas of

pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical technologies, and services. Together, HCP and its

members develop innovative projects in areas such as translational and clinical research, active

and healthy ageing, health tourism, and eHealth, with the purpose of turning knowledge into new

solutions that contribute to the improvement of human health and wellbeing, and work to make

Portugal the right place to invest and build partnerships in Health.

To learn more about HCP members, please visit www.healthportugal-directory.com

4/7

HCP | March 2017 | www.healthportugal.com

Mission

HCP assumes as its mission to strengthen the competitiveness of Portugal in the research, design,

development, manufacturing and commercialization of health-related products and services, in

selected market and technological niches, targeting the most demanding and relevant international

markets, based on the recognition of its excellence, technological level and competences in the

field of innovation.

Strategic Vision 2020

HCP’s Subclusters

Under a logic of smart specialisation, HCP has an ongoing process of implementing the so-called

Subclusters, which are defined as groups of institutions, based in Portugal, with capacities – at

the scientific, clinical, industrial and commercial levels – oriented towards a specific “market” within

the Health area, and organized in order to create and exploit synergies between them. At the

present time, initiatives are under way in the areas of Cancer, Neurosciences, and Medical

Tourism.

Science, Technology

& Innovation. diseases

. pharmaceutical & biotechnology. medical technologies

. nanotechnologies. clinical and translational research

Business dynamics. healthcare

. pharmaceutical & biotechnology. medical devices

. auxiliary diagnostic means. eHealth

People. qualified human resources

. scientific societies. patient associations

Public support / New agendas. smart specialisation. reindustrialisation. Portugal 2020 + Horizon 2020. incentives to investment, innovation & employment. attraction of foreign investment

+ social and economic development

+ turnover

+ exports

+ employment (qualified)

+ health

STRATEGIC OPTIONS

well-being / active ageing

preventive, personalised and participative medicine(diseases – neurodegenerative, cancer,cardiovascular, degenerative osteoarticular,inflammatory, infectious, metabolic)

health tourism

eHealth

5/7

HCP | March 2017 | www.healthportugal.com

HCP Membership Directory

The HCP Membership Directory, which is available at www.healthportugal-directory.com, is a

guide of organisations operating in the Portuguese health value chain, including universities, R&D

institutions, hospitals and companies in the areas of pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical

devices, ICT and services. Visitors can use it to access to information about HCP members and

find scientific, clinical, technological, industrial or commercial partners.

SciPort | Health in Portugal: Science and Technology Resources Database

SciPort is an open-access, user-friendly database, managed by HCP and available at

www.scienceportugal.com, that includes information about Portuguese Institutions, R&D Projects

and Service Centres in the domain of Health. Thereby, global stakeholders – for example,

researchers and companies from all over the world – are offered a “one-stop-shop” where they can

freely and easily search for scientific/technological and business partners in Portugal.

HCP@LinkedIn

HCP maintains a dynamic presence on LinkedIn, and the networking group “Health Cluster

Portugal” () is a privileged meeting point for over 1,900 agents of the Health sector. Its subgroups

“HCP: I&D em Saúde | Health R&D” (), “HCP: Valorização do Conhecimento | Knowledge

Valorization” (), and “HCP: Potencial Humano | Human Potential” () are also integrated by

several hundred participants that rely on them for accessing the latest information and insights on

the Health sector – e.g., news, events, studies and reports, funding opportunities, partner searches,

technology offers, job opportunities, and training courses.

6/7

HCP | March 2017 | www.healthportugal.com

TRIS-HCP

The Translational and Clinical Research Infrastructures Specialisation Platform – Health

Cluster Portugal (TRIS-HCP) (http://healthportugal.com/tris-hcp) is a virtual organisational system

within HCP that brings together many of the most prominent Portuguese R&D institutions, hospitals

and academic medical centres, and their respective facilities, resources, services and expertise in

the areas of translational and clinical research, making them more accessible to other (national or

foreign) researchers and companies. TRIS-HCP is integrated in the Portuguese Roadmap of

Research Infrastructures 2014-2020 (), established by the Portuguese Foundation for Science

and Technology (FCT).

TRIS-HCP can assist (external) researchers and companies in finding the right partners for their

R&D projects, since it brings together, through its members (view list of members at

http://healthportugal.com/tris-hcp/members-mission), a wide range of resources and expertise,

mainly in the following specialisation areas:

i) Diseases – cancer, cardiovascular, infectious, metabolic, neurological, rare.

ii) Products – advanced therapy medicinal products and biologics, biomarkers, imaging and tracing,

small molecules, vaccines.

7/7

HCP | March 2017 | www.healthportugal.com

Project AAL4ALL – Ambient Assisted Living for All

The project AAL4ALL (www.aal4all.org) aimed at the development of an ecosystem of products

and services for Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) associated to a business model and validated

through large scale trial. It brought together 28 partners, with a budget of over € 8 million.

Project Do IT – Development and Operation of Translational Research

The project Do IT (http://doit.com.pt/) aimed at the creation and subsequent multiplication within

the Portuguese health value chain of a series of “translational research ecosystems”, based on

strong and functional partnerships between companies, scientific and technological system

organisations, universities and hospitals, in order to foster an effective transfer, valorisation and

exploitation of results generated by R&D activities, including the development of innovative and

competitive products and services for the global health market. The project brought together 21

partners and its budget was close to € 9 million.

Regular initiatives

HCP regularly promotes initiatives in order to inform, to raise the awareness, and to promote the

discussion around themes relevant to the Health sector, as well as actions of networking and

promotion of its members and the Portuguese Health sector. Information about HCP’s past

initiatives, which have been attended by over 5,000 participants, is available at

http://healthportugal.com/about-us/regular-initiatives.

For more information about HCP, its projects and its activities, please visit www.healthportugal.com

and HCP’s LinkedIn® profile at www.linkedin.com/company/health-cluster-portugal.