AOP Health: Vienna as a springboard for global expansion

Founded in Vienna in 1996, the company now employs over 600 staff from more than 49 countries. Its international presence ranges from branches in all European countries to offices in Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Israel, and extends as far as the USA. A network of around 150 distribution partners ensures that patients in more than 55 countries worldwide are supplied.

In recent years, AOP Health has made significant progress in making therapies more widely available to people with rare and particularly serious diseases. A key focus is on rare blood disorders. Treatments have been developed for situations where the body produces too many red blood cells, as well as for cases where the bone marrow produces too many platelets.

Another focus is on rare forms of pulmonary hypertension (high pressure in the blood vessels of the lungs). Here, specially designed approaches help to relieve the strain on the blood vessels in the lungs. This means the heart does not have to work as hard, and those affected become more resilient in their daily lives. In intensive care medicine, the focus is also on acute emergencies, for example when, in cases of severe blood poisoning, blood pressure remains dangerously low despite other measures, or when a very rapid heartbeat needs to be slowed down temporarily so that doctors can stabilise patients until the underlying cause has been treated.

Since 2025, AOP Health has also expanded its profile into a new field through a strategic partnership with RHEACELL and has incorporated additional cell therapy projects into its development pipeline. Also since 2025, the company has been expanding its presence in the USA and is represented locally with its own unit. Initial activities in the US market are already underway.

For AOP Health, Vienna was the right location from the outset to build an internationally successful life sciences company. The decisive factor in the decision to establish the company in Vienna was the combination of an excellent academic environment, a strong network of research institutions, hospitals and start-ups, and the high quality of life that attracts talent from all over the world to the city.

Vienna’s central location in Europe was also a decisive factor: Vienna lies at the crossroads between Western, Central and Eastern Europe. International activities can be efficiently coordinated from here. For almost three decades, Vienna has thus been the base for expansion.

Digitalisation is standard practice at AOP Health – from clinical research and drug safety to services for patients. It enables more efficient analysis of clinical data, better communication with doctors and patients, and data-driven management of the entire value chain.

Artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly important: for example, in the analysis of study data, the identification of measurable indicators in the body that reveal information about health or disease, or improvements in logistics. The aim is to further develop Vienna as the digital and scientific hub of the AOP Health Group and to bring innovations to market more quickly for the benefit of patients.

The Vienna Business Agency supported AOP Health in establishing its new headquarters at Square One in Vienna’s 19th district.