In 1558, the School of Medicine was one the founding faculties of the Jena University. Pharmacy in a modern sense was not (yet) practiced there, but the institution held a medicinal herb garden (Hortus Medicus) for the production of medicinal plants and ‘to the benefit of all medical students’.

In 1942, Hans Knöll was the first to carry out a laboratory process for the production of penicillin in continental Europe in his laboratory in Jena. In 1950, the company Jenapharm emerged from Knöll’s laboratory. Nowadays, Jenapharm has become the market leader in the field of oral conception in Germany, belongs to the leading companies for hormone replacement therapy and has specialized in women’s health care. 

Cooperation in biotechnology, medical engineering and optical technology has a long tradition in Jena. The Alere Technologies GmbH is just one example how successful this cooperation can be. It was founded in 1998 as a startup company and has now become an internationally successful developer and producer for science and diagnostics. Another guarantor for success: Carl Zeiss MicroImaging. Being the leading manufacturer of microscope systems, the company offers all-in-one solutions for biomedical research, health care and industry.

The Beutenberg Campus in Jena hosts a large number of research institutions such as the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology – Hans Knöll Institute, the Leibniz Institute for Age Research – Fritz Lipman Institute, the Centre for Molecular Biomedicine and the Institute of Virology and Antiviral Therapy of Jena’s Friedrich Schiller University, the Max Planck Institutes for Biogeochemistry and Chemical Ecology as well as the BioCentiv Centre for Bioinstruments. In addition, the Campus hosts renowned research groups such as the Centre for Innovation Competence called Septomics in the field of sepsis research and the Jenaer Biochip Initiative. 

Biologists, biochemists, pharmacists and nutritionists learn their skills at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena. Practical experience is vital from the very beginning, for instance at the “School for Microbial Communication”, a graduate school supported by the Excellence Initiative. Eligible junior employees can also be found among the graduates of the Department of Medical Engineering and Biotechnology of the University of Applied Sciences Jena.

Founders can make their plans come true in specific laboratories of the Centre for Bioinstruments, with the support of BioCentiv, or in the Technology and Innovation Park Jena. One story of success: Wacker Biotech, a former outsourcing of the Hans Knöll Institute and a full subsidiary of Wacker Chemie since 2005, with their new production line for biopharmaceuticals in Jena.