In the province of Florence there are over 3,900 companies operating in innovative, high tech sectors, more than a third of the entire high-tech sector in the region, which registered about 11,400 enterprises. These are mainly companies that develop software and provide consulting for information systems, or electronic data processing, produce equipment for industrial process control and services of remote control, robotics and eidomatics. The sector disposes of the most advanced technologies and skills, and is generally oriented toward developing high precision mechanized systems applicable to the widest variety of fields. One highly developed sector, for example, is that of the production of radio, television and telephone equipment, including systems and parts for power distribution and control and air traffic control. Many examples of excellence are expressed by companies like the El.En Group (which produces opto-electronic equipment and is quoted on the Milan Stock Exchange), Infogroup (created by the CR Bank of Florence and operating in the sector of information technology applied to the banking system), Ote (telecommunications), Esaote (biomedical), Galileo and also Dada and Chl, which are leading European companies in the distribution of software and information service consulting.
The last frontier in the application of technological know how concerns the bio-tech sector. The Biomedical Department of the Careggi Hospital in Florence, with the research centres of the University and the Science Centre in Sesto Fiorentino, particularly the European Centre of Magnetic Resonance (Cerm) make up the heart of the Biotech Valley in Central Italy. There is a concentration here of the most sophisticated instrumentation and the most highly qualified skills in the field of research on proteins and the human genome; recently, the University inaugurated a new degree program in biotechnologies (with the collaboration of four departments: Medicine, Pharmacology, Sciences and Agriculture). In this sector, the Chamber of Commerce of Florence, with the support of the Cassa di Risparmio Foundation of Florence, the CR Bank of Florence and the Monte dei Paschi di Siena bank (which finance the program at various levels and in different ways depending on the types of projects), promotes and aids the establishment of University and Foundation spin-offs (ProtEra and Fiorgen) that engage in gene-related pharmaceutical research and the development of "custom" drugs.
