Danish obesity success causes recruitment problems in southern Sweden

Following Novo Nordisk’s exceptional success in obesity and diabetes medicines, the company is expanding its production capacity with more manufacturing facilities and new research initiatives.

In order to cope with the situation, the company is draining the region of expertise, to the detriment of pharmaceutical companies in Skåne, which are finding it difficult to retain Swedish staff and have no chance of recruiting top Danish talents, writes Dagens Industri.

“We can’t keep up with the salary competition, and recruiting Danish key players to Sweden is now simply impossible,” Ebba Fåhraeus of the Smile incubator in Lund told the newspaper.

Danish salaries are generally around 50% higher than those in Sweden, and the weak Swedish krona adds to the difficulties for Swedish companies that need to recruit.

Petter Hartman, CEO of Medicon Village Innovation, notes that the Danish competition is causing many Swedish pharmaceutical companies to look for staff of non-European origin instead.

“However, here we are facing another major concern in the form of tough migration regulations,” he tells DI.