Articles & Interviews

Fireside Chat “Greece as a Launchpad for European Biotech” with Yannis Stournaras, Governor of the Bank of Greece and Thanos Niforos, Ambassador & Mentor at BioInnovation Greece

03/10/2026 - Articles & Interviews

Question 1: The Productivity Question

Governor, central bankers often speak about productivity rather than sectors. If biotech succeeds in Greece, what contribution could it make to Greece's long-term productivity and potential growth, and what would convince you that this is becoming a macroeconomic story rather than simply a successful industry story?

Biotech can certainly become a successful industry in Greece, but from a macroeconomic perspective, the more important question is whether its success can generate productivity gains that extend beyond the sector itself.

Biotech is precisely the type of knowledge-intensive activity that can support a more productive growth model. It combines R&D, highly skilled human capital, advanced technologies—including increasingly AI—and significant investment. It can therefore contribute directly to actual and potential growth through higher value-added production, investment and exports, but also, more importantly, through the knowledge and technology spillovers it can generate across the economy.

This is part of a broader European challenge. Europe does not primarily have a science problem; it has a “research translation” and scale-up one. The EU accounts for around 21% of the world's leading biotechnology scientific publications, comparable to the US and China, but attracts only around 7% of global venture-capital investment in health biotech.[1] So the challenge is not simply to generate knowledge, but to translate knowledge into commercially viable innovation and thus into economic value.

The proposed European Biotech Act aims to address this gap by strengthening the entire innovation chain—from research and clinical trials to financing, commercialisation and industrial scale-up—, creating the conditions for innovative firms to grow within Europe. It is remarkable that, between 2019 and 2025, 66 out of 67 EU biotech companies that went public chose to list outside the EU.[2]

For Greece, this is a significant opportunity. We already have some key building blocks: a strong scientific and medical talent pool, internationally connected universities and research centres, an established pharmaceutical industry, clinical-trial capabilities, and a growing ecosystem of innovative start-ups and spin-offs. The opportunity is to link these assets more effectively and turn research into marketable products and services.

This matters because Greece's long-term growth model needs to become more innovation-driven, more outward-oriented and increasingly focused on higher value-added activities. A stronger biotech ecosystem could deepen links between universities and firms, attract R&D-intensive foreign investment, create highly skilled jobs, support brain regain, and increase the technological content of our exports.

So, for me, biotech becomes a macroeconomic story when we see these effects spreading beyond a small number of successful companies: when research becomes commercially viable innovation, start-ups become scale-ups, international investment generates domestic knowledge spillovers, skilled talent is attracted and retained, and productivity gains begin to diffuse across firms and sectors.

Follow up Question 1(B)

What are the first indicators you would watch: R&D expenditure, patents, exports, talent attraction, or investment flows?

I would look at a combination of indicators, and importantly at how they evolve along the innovation chain.

At the early stage, I would watch R&D expenditure, investment flows and our ability to attract and retain highly skilled researchers. Then I would look for evidence that these inputs are producing results: patents, clinical research, new products and start-ups successfully scaling up.

But from a macro perspective, the most important indicators come further downstream: higher technology-intensive exports, greater participation in European and global value chains, more high-skilled employment and, ultimately, stronger productivity growth.

And in the current European context, I would add one more test: whether innovative Greek companies can raise the capital they need to scale while remaining in Greece and Europe. The real success factor is not simply whether we generate research, but whether we can turn research and talent into investment, production, exports and productivity.

Question 2: The Capital Markets Union Question

Europe produces world-class science, yet many breakthrough companies seek growth capital outside Europe. From your perspective, what is the single most important Capital Markets Union reform that could help Europe retain and scale companies in fields like biotechnology?

Financing innovation in Europe is indeed an issue. Although European households have a very high savings ratio (about 15% of their annual income) and a significantly higher one than their American counterparts, their savings are mostly channeled towards bank deposits rather than securities, twice as strongly compared to US households. And while banks transform these deposits into loans to the private sector, studies show that bank financing disproportionately favours established and well-capitalised firms over innovative startups that are poised to disrupt existing market structures.[3]

Consequently, the role of financial markets as a mechanism of channeling savings into real-economy investments is much weaker in Europe than in leading economies like the US. The lag of European financial markets relative to competitors is hampering innovation in the European economy. Indeed, total funding of R&D is about €400 billion or 2.1% of the combined EU GDP vis-à-vis €1 trillion or 3.3% of the US GDP. Private spending for R&D is even more disadvantageous for Europe: it accounts for 1.3% of GDP vis-à-vis 2.4% in the US (source: ERC).

Another hurdle is the fragmentation of European capital markets. We need to remove barriers to cross-border investments and simplify the rules governing European capital markets. Specific steps towards this goal, in the context of the Savings and Investments Union (SIU), include aligning regulatory requirements and practices across the EU, simplifying processes to access capital markets for funding and investing, supporting cross-border trading and removing obstacles for innovative financial technologies.

Turning to your question, it is difficult to single out the most important capital market reform, as it takes a combination of measures to achieve true integration and deepening. For example, firms in the European biotechnology sector are expected to benefit from the SIU’s “Market integration and supervision package”, which simplifies the regulatory and supervisory framework for the European financial system, as well as the Commission’s proposal for a “Pan-European Market Operator” regime, which allows tapping funds supplied by a broader investor base. Additionally, biotech companies could benefit from access to a more integrated market for long-term capital, including the retirement savings in pension funds, thus expanding and diversifying significantly their funding opportunities.   

Follow up Question 2(B)

Is Europe's challenge today more about generating innovation, or financing the scale-up phase?

Europe’s big challenge is about catching up technologically with other economies, such as the US and China, which are similar in size and other characteristics but are much more innovative.

As discussed earlier, Europe should also make use of its research output, which is corresponding to a third of the global research output, but is not yet commercialised. Promoting more research in fields such as technology and engineering, would serve the goal of promoting innovation in a competitive manner and make European firms more efficient and productive.

In this sense, financing innovation and the early-stage phase in a viable and profitable way is deemed a necessary step before being able to expand the business.

Question 3: The Launchpad Question

We often describe Greece as a potential Launchpad for European biotech. From a central banking perspective, what transforms a country from being simply a location for research into becoming a true Launchpad for investment, scaling and international capital attraction?

Research excellence is clearly a necessary condition, but it is not sufficient to make a country a true Launchpad for investment, scaling and long-term capital.

For Greece, there is an important additional advantage: being part of the European Union and the Single Market. The objective should therefore not simply be to create successful Greek biotech companies, but to establish Greece as an attractive world-class biomedical hub and a gate to the wider European and international markets.

From a central bank perspective, I would start with macroeconomic stability and credibility. Long-term investors need confidence in the sustainability of public finances, the stability of the financial system and of the broader economic environment. Greece has made very significant progress in this respect in recent years, with strong fiscal performance, declining public debt, the restoration of investment grade and a much stronger banking sector. These achievements have substantially improved the country's investment appeal.

At the same time, safeguarding minority rights is a very crucial regulatory condition if a country aspires to become a Launchpad, since even large investment funds will only hold minority shares in their assets and only specialised investor consortiums will seek to control the management of the company in which they invest.

Clearly, the overall financial development of the economy, in terms of depth, access and efficiency, plays a central role to becoming a Launchpad. Greece should thus position itself as a pivotal player in the effort to promote a genuine European CMU. To this end, the strategic initiative to integrate the Athens Stock Exchange into the Euronext Ecosystem is critical, effectively anchoring domestic markets within Europe’s leading capital market infrastructure. Being part of the SIU would also allow Greece to offer biotech firms innovative capital more effectively and at scale, from venture capital at the early stages to growth equity and venture debt at the scale-up phase.

While macroeconomic stability is the foundation, institutional quality is also fundamental for investors, particularly in biotech, where R&D costs are high, investment horizons are long and the period between initial research and commercial returns can be considerable.

Regulation therefore matters enormously, but the objective should not simply be less regulation. It should be better regulation, as also proposed in the European Biotech Act: clear rules, more predictable approval processes, and efficient implementation, including regulatory sandboxes and shorter time-to-market.

Taking all the necessary ingredients together, Greece is a promising candidate to transform into a genuine European biotech Launchpad. Scientific excellence creates the opportunity; macroeconomic stability, institutional quality, policy consistency, predictable and fit-for-purpose regulation, and access to deep and integrated capital markets determine whether that opportunity becomes investment and champion firms.

Follow up Question 3(B)

In your experience, what is the most underestimated ingredient of investment attractiveness: stability, speed, regulation, or access to capital?

All four matter, and in practice they reinforce one another. Stability attracts investors, access to capital allows firms to grow, and good regulation creates the framework within which innovation can take place.

But if I had to identify the most underestimated ingredient, I would probably say it is institutionally-induced investor confidence. The most underpriced asset for foreign investors is that of institutional safeguards that they will not lose money but for reasons related to their own economic choices. Administrative effectiveness, particularly speed and predictability, is also an equally important institutional parameter.

For an investor, time is cost. This is especially true in biotech. Clinical-trial applications are approved within around 60 days in the US and China, compared with an average of 113 days for multinational trials in the EU.[4] Delays affect time-to-market, investment returns and ultimately competitiveness.

Greece has made substantial progress, particularly in digitalising public services and improving the business environment. But administrative burdens, regulatory complexity and, importantly, delays in the judicial system remain significant constraints.

These may appear to be microeconomic issues, but collectively they act as a hidden tax on investment. Reducing that hidden tax would significantly strengthen Greece's attractiveness for biotech and, more broadly, productive, innovation-intensive investment.

Question 4: Public policy focus

If Greece wants to attract significantly more international biotech investment over the next decade, where should public policy focus first: reducing uncertainty, mobilizing capital, strengthening research translation, or improving scale-up infrastructure?

I would not see these as competing priorities. A successful biotech ecosystem requires progress on all four. But public policy needs to get the foundations right first.

The starting point is stability and credibility. Biotech investment is particularly long-term and risky: R&D costs are high, commercial outcomes are uncertain and it may take many years before an investment generates returns. Investors therefore need confidence that the macroeconomic, institutional and regulatory environment will remain stable and predictable over the investment horizon.

This is why political stability is such an important intangible asset for an economy. Combined with sound macroeconomic policies, fiscal credibility and a stable financial system, it reduces uncertainty and creates the confidence needed for investors to make long-term commitments. Greece has made substantial progress in all these areas, and preserving these achievements is essential.

But once these foundations are in place, I would put particular emphasis on strengthening research translation and human capital.

Greece has strong universities, research centres and scientific talent. What we need is stronger technology diffusion and much closer links between universities, research institutions and businesses, so that more scientific discoveries are transformed into patents, useful applications, commercially viable products, spin-offs and eventually firms capable of scaling internationally. This is also very much in line with the direction of the proposed European Biotech Act, which seeks to close Europe's gap between scientific excellence and commercialisation.

Human capital is equally critical. Biotech is fundamentally a talent-intensive sector. We need to increase the pool of highly specialised researchers, scientists and technical professionals, while creating the conditions to attract international talent and bring back highly qualified Greeks who have built successful careers abroad. Brain regain can bring not only skills, but also international research networks, entrepreneurial experience and connections to global capital.

Clinical research is another area where Greece has an existing base on which to build. This is particularly timely because Europe has been losing ground: the European Economic Area's share of global commercial clinical trials fell from 22% in 2013 to 12% in 2023.[5] The proposed European Biotech Act seeks to reverse this trend through faster authorisations, simpler procedures and better coordination across Member States. Strengthening Greece's position in clinical research could therefore attract R&D investment, deepen links between international companies and the domestic research community, and generate wider knowledge and productivity spillovers.

We also need to ensure that successful start-ups can become scale-ups. This requires access to venture and growth capital, specialised research and clinical infrastructure, effective intellectual-property frameworks and stronger links with European capital markets. And the new European initiatives matter here: BioTechEU and the proposed investment instruments create an opportunity to mobilise substantially more private capital into European biotech.

But I would be cautious about measuring policy ambition by the amount of subsidies provided. Public support has an important role where market failures exist, particularly in fundamental research and early-stage innovation. But productivity matters more than subsidies. The objective should be to use public resources strategically—to crowd in private investment, strengthen research capacity and create an ecosystem that can ultimately become self-sustaining.

In the end, success should not be measured by how much public money we spend on biotech. It should be measured by whether Greece becomes a place where scientific knowledge is transformed into investment, where start-ups become scale-ups, where talented people choose to work and return, and where biotech innovation translates into higher-value-added exports and productivity growth.