Summary 2019

The Medicine Estonia Cluster (MTÜ Eesti Meditsiiniekspordi klaster) is a cluster of companies providing medical services aimed at an international market, i.e. a cooperation platform operating as a non-profit organisation.

The goal of Medicine Estonia is to enable its members to make a profit from exporting healthcare services. The cluster helps advance export by developing services, by having in-depth knowledge of target markets and through the coordinated efforts of the Estonian medical industry.

An initiative group of active medical service providers together with partnering companies agreed on a vision and a strong willingness to cooperate in order to implement the joint cluster strategy for the purpose of developing medical services and increasing the sales revenue of service providers through co-marketing, product development and internationalisation. The goal is to make Medicine Estonia partners more competitive through co-marketing on external markets and raise the quality of products and services through product development.

The cluster comprises healthcare providers with different ownership forms, operational goals, clinical areas and business models. They all provide high-quality services and seek to make medical service providers more competitive within their organisation and in Estonia generally.

The cluster membership was formed of companies that have actual experience concerning the provision of services on external markets or preparedness to invest in such provision of services in the near future. One of the criteria is the common ground all cluster partners share in terms of essential development and promotional activities or a shared value chain. This way, activities within the cluster generate important synergy, unlike fragmented efforts and investments to increase sales revenue.

Co-marketing facilitates the provision of services in local as well as external markets while also reducing costs. A wider network of contacts helps ensure that the interests of cluster members receive more coverage and are better protected (incl. internationally). This leads to improved cooperation with foreign partners and service providers. Cooperation with service provides and R&D organisations in foreign countries allows us to improve the quality of services provided in Estonia and contribute to the increased provision of services across borders.

We have seen more patients from foreign countries. Finnish and Russian nationals as well as citizens from other Baltic States are more willing to use Estonian healthcare services.

The assessment committee of Enterprise Estonia on entrepreneurship and innovation decided to support project EU50483 ‘Improvement of the national competitiveness of the Medicine Estonia cluster’ from the cluster development programme. The project launched in November 2016 and concluded in October 2018. In 2019, the project report was filed and documentation put in order for project EU50483. The report was approved in July 2019. Joint activities were limited since there were no new projects in 2019. A think tank was called in 2019 to determine whether and in what way partners could jointly take part in the Dubai EXPO.