Johnson & Johnson, Roche, GSK, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Moderna, Merck, GE Healthcare, Takeda, IQVIA, Fresenius, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Astellas – this is only a partial list of leading Healthcare & Life Sciences (HLS) organizations that have chosen to expand their digital operations in Poland, building advanced IT, data, AI, and cybersecurity teams in our country.
Global Healthcare & Life Sciences Companies Expand Digital Capabilities in Poland
In this article, we take a closer look at the massive presence of digital hubs and technology teams established in Poland by global Healthcare & Life Sciences companies. Their number has become a true global phenomenon in recent years, and the scale of operations and level of innovation they deliver are exceptional on the world stage. No other country in Central and Eastern Europe – and only a handful worldwide – hosts such a concentration of HLS digital operations. It is also worth noting that Poland’s broader healthtech and digital‑health ecosystem has, in recent years, evolved far beyond its early ‘nearshore’ perception. In addition to global pharma and medtech technology hubs, the country now hosts a vibrant wave of digital‑health startups and innovators whose solutions are used across Europe and increasingly beyond. But in this article, we will mainly focus on global HLS leaders, since describing the entire ecosystem warrants much broader analysis.
We will begin by outlining examples of companies operating in several major Polish cities. Importantly, we focus exclusively on IT, AI, Data, and occasionally cybersecurity teams. Those teams may sometimes function as part of larger business units or shared services centers in Poland, but more often represent standalone entities within global technology structures. We therefore do not include companies currently present in Poland only with business operations (e.g., Pfizer) or those whose local centers do not operate IT functions at scale – for instance, Novartis’ Operations Hub focused on logistics, supply chain, quality, and lifecycle management rather than digital.
In the second part of the article, we will explain the key drivers behind this boom. They fall into two main categories:
- The rapidly growing demand for innovation across the Healthcare & Life Sciences sector, and
- Poland’s unique competitive advantages as one of the world’s fastest-growing and most highly regarded technology hubs.
We will also outline how Winged IT holistically supports companies building and scaling digital teams in Poland – a core area of our business for many years – translating our expertise directly into our clients’ success.
The Unseen Powerhouse: Poland’s Explosive Growth in HLS Digital Hubs
Poland has become a powerhouse in the global landscape of digital hubs established by Healthcare & Life Sciences companies. Over recent decades, and especially in the past ten years, international organizations such as AstraZeneca, Astellas, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Fresenius, GE Healthcare, GSK, IQVIA, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Moderna, Roche, and Takeda have launched and continued to expand advanced technical teams here.
Each of these organizations has its own history, scale, and operational specifics. Some have dedicated digital operations centers in Poland, while others have established technical teams as part of broader shared services centers (according to ABSL, there are 79 such HLS centers in Poland employing approximately 23,700 FTEs). Notably, technology hubs of global HLS leaders are located across multiple Polish cities. Initially, the most significant centers emerged in Warsaw and Poznań.
Roche and GSK were pioneers in establishing digital operations in Poland and, as a result, maintain substantial specialized digital teams alongside other business functions. Roche employs more than 1,250 people in Poland, including over 500 digital, data, and technology specialists across its Global IT Solution Centre in Poznań and Warsaw. GSK operates its Poland Global Hub in the same cities, employing roughly 2,500 people. Within this, the R&D Hub and Global Capability Tech Centre employ around 1,400 specialists combined.
In the following years, numerous additional companies launched technology teams across other Polish cities.
For example, Merck Group selected Wrocław as its primary location, where Merck Business Solutions Europe (MBSE) – the company’s second-largest global business services center – operates. MBSE’s IT teams support areas such as project management, digital transformation, SAP systems, and cybersecurity. Also based in and around Wrocław is Fresenius, which operates three Polish entities: Fresenius Digital Technology Polska, Global Business Services, and Fresenius Kabi. These teams deliver global IT infrastructure support, develop advanced medical software, and implement intelligent automation and AI solutions for Fresenius units worldwide. Wrocław is also home to one of Boehringer Ingelheim’s four Global Business Services (GBS) Centers (the others are in Germany, Argentina, and the Philippines). Polish engineers there focus on IT systems for pharma, data engineering, and cybersecurity for regulated environments.
GE Healthcare, in turn, established the Poland Digital Technology Hub in Kraków, employing several hundred people. The hub leads digital transformation initiatives for the medical technology manufacturer and delivers AI-enabled solutions designed to optimize data flows and improve operational efficiency for customers. According to the company, the technology hub in Poland is a key location within the EMEA region and plays a strategic role in responding to increasing demand for IT talent.
Takeda, Japan’s largest pharmaceutical company, built its Business Services Center in Łódź, employing more than 800 people representing 27 nationalities. Beyond IT services, the center supports Takeda’s global HR, finance, and accounting operations.
In subsequent years, a large number of companies chose Warsaw as the site for their digital hubs – including IQVIA, Johnson & Johnson, and AstraZeneca. IQVIA employs Data and AI Engineers as well as Full-Stack and Application Developers in Poland. Johnson & Johnson’s Polish technology teams focus on advanced digital medicine engineering, data analytics, and cybersecurity, making Poland one of the company’s key EMEA locations in this domain. AstraZeneca operates its primary digital center in Warsaw (with an additional team in Kraków). A few years ago, more than half of the company’s 1,800 Poland-based employees were already engaged in R&D projects, and by 2025, total employment exceeded 3,000. AstraZeneca’s One Poland Hub supports global IT operations, while the Warsaw AI Centre of Excellence focuses on Data Science and Artificial Intelligence initiatives.
When discussing Warsaw, it is essential to mention the Warsaw Health Innovation Hub (WHIH) – a joint initiative of the Polish Medical Research Agency and leading companies in the healthcare, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology sectors. The hub aims to create innovative medical, technological, and regulatory solutions to improve patient outcomes and strengthen the healthcare system. Its strategic focus areas include pharmaceutical innovation, medical technology, medical device innovation, and health IT. Most of the companies referenced in this article are WHIH partners.
Hence, by around 2020, major Polish cities had already firmly established themselves as digital innovation leaders in the Healthcare & Life Sciences sector – mirroring their rise as key technology hubs across many other industries. Equally important, the past few years have seen announcements of yet more digital hubs created by industry giants such as Moderna, Bayer, and Astellas – their remarks on investments in Poland will be featured in the second part of this article.
Moreover, alongside these global leaders, numerous smaller yet highly specialized HLS companies continue to invest in Polish digital capabilities. Parexel, a leading global clinical research organization (CRO), operates IT teams in Poland focused on clinical trial technologies, data management, and eClinical platforms, integrated into Parexel’s global technology division and Parexel AI Labs. Syneos Health, a global biopharmaceutical solutions provider, runs technology projects in Poland supporting clinical research and health analytics through software engineering, AI, and data platform development. Thermo Fisher Scientific maintains technology teams in Poland originating from PPD, which the company acquired in 2021. These teams support global clinical systems, including IT for clinical operations, data engineering, and digital trial platforms. ICON plc also operates technology teams in Poland supporting global clinical research, specializing in data analytics, clinical IT systems, and machine-learning-driven trial optimization. A recent example is Medpace, which is rapidly expanding its software development footprint beyond the United States and is scaling its Warsaw office to build its first non-US development center.
Why Poland Became the Go-To Destination for HLS Digital Innovation?
As highlighted at the beginning of this article, it is time to understand the forces that have prompted leading Healthcare & Life Sciences companies worldwide to expand their digital and technical operations into Poland. In our opinion, there are two main reasons: the growing need for digital, data, and AI innovation in HLS, and Poland's strong competitive advantages as an ideal country to meet that demand. Let's examine both of these areas in turn.
The global Healthcare & Life Sciences industry is undergoing a profound technological transformation, driven by rapid advancements in digital platforms, cloud computing, advanced analytics, and – most notably – artificial intelligence. Innovation is no longer a supporting function for HLS companies; it has become an essential strategic pillar that determines competitiveness, operational resilience, and long‑term growth.
According to Deloitte’s “2025 Life Sciences Outlook”, digital transformation remains a central priority for the industry, fuelled by new generations of cloud capabilities, generative AI, and intelligent automation. These innovations, as Deloitte notes, “provide companies with new opportunities to enhance their products, services, operations, and strategic decision‑making,” reshaping every aspect of how HLS organizations discover, develop, and deliver therapies to patients. Executives across the sector increasingly recognize that maintaining global leadership requires embracing digitally enabled innovation as a core driver of future value creation.
This industry-wide shift is also consistently highlighted across market outlooks and strategic foresight reports. The same perspective is echoed, for example, in the “CPHI 2026 Pharma Trends Outlook”, which anticipates “rapid advances in healthcare and technology” and highlights the increasing convergence of biotechnology, software engineering, and data‑driven medicine. CPHI emphasizes that the “interdisciplinary fusion of pharma and tech has become a pivotal opportunity to transform healthcare” – from accelerating R&D cycles and modernizing clinical trials to enabling personalized medicine at scale. One of the most urgent areas of focus is the integration of AI across the pharmaceutical value chain, which CPHI identifies as “among the most pressing concerns for pharma.”
Collectively, these forces are reshaping global operating models. Life sciences companies now require:
- accelerated drug discovery supported by AI‑driven modeling,
- modernized, data‑rich clinical development platforms,
- scalable digital infrastructure,
- real‑time analytics for both R&D and manufacturing,
- and integrated data ecosystems across global operations.
This unprecedented demand for digital, data, and AI innovation has been a major catalyst behind the global expansion outlined in the first part of this article. It has pushed leading HLS organizations to seek specialized technology talent and locations capable of supporting large‑scale transformation. In this global search for high‑quality digital capabilities, Poland quickly emerged as one of the most attractive and strategically aligned destinations.
Poland: The Best Place on Earth for Digital Innovation?
The rapid emergence of Poland as one of the world’s most attractive destinations for digital, data, and AI operations in Healthcare & Life Sciences is driven by a combination of structural strengths that are both rare and highly aligned with the industry’s needs. Poland offers something that few markets globally can match: a deep and exceptionally skilled technology workforce, a stable and investment‑friendly environment, a rapidly advancing digital economy, and a proven track record of hosting sophisticated global operations.
Below, we outline the key factors shaping Poland’s competitive edge. On this occasion, we also recall some statements about their priorities from three companies that have recently been actively developing their tech activities in Poland and which we only mentioned earlier: Moderna, Bayer, and Astellas. This will allow us to demonstrate, through examples, how Poland meets the industry's main needs and becomes a magnet for its subsequent leaders.
One of Europe’s Largest and Most Skilled IT Talent Pools
According to Do IT in Poland, the country is one of the strongest global locations for building digital capabilities, offering:
- the largest pool of software engineers in Central and Eastern Europe, with more than 500,000 developers,
- a top‑3 global ranking in programming skills across multiple independent assessments,
- 75,000 ICT students currently in the pipeline, ensuring long-term scalability.
This depth and quality of talent aligns precisely with what HLS companies need for advanced digital work – particularly in AI, data engineering, cybersecurity, and regulated‑environment software development. Crucially, the differentiator is quality, not just scale.
Polish engineers enjoy an exceptional global reputation in advanced software engineering and AI research. Their presence in leading AI institutions is notable – especially at OpenAI, where several key technical figures come from Poland. Wojciech Zaremba co-founded the organization in 2015; Jakub Pachocki, now OpenAI’s Chief Scientist, has contributed to major breakthroughs, including OpenAI Five and the GPT‑4 research program; Szymon Sidor is a senior researcher driving advanced model‑development efforts; Łukasz Kaiser – co-author of the Transformer architecture – contributes expertise in foundational model design; and Patryk Lesiewicz, who joined OpenAI in 2023 after many years at Google, strengthens the company’s engineering capabilities.
Polish innovation in AI extends beyond individual researchers. ElevenLabs is just one good example to mention. This Polish-founded AI voice technology company has gained global prominence for developing some of the most advanced text-to-speech models on the market and, as a result, became an official OpenAI partner. Together, these individual and organizational achievements reinforce the view that Poland is not only a source of highly capable digital talent but a country whose engineers actively shape the frontier of global AI development.
It is therefore no surprise that Bayer’s global leadership has described Poland as an innovation-ready market. Markus Baltzer, Senior Bayer Representative for Central & Eastern Europe, emphasized:
Poles have an impressive talent for innovation and new technologies, especially in areas like AI and ML.
This assessment translated directly into business decisions: Bayer announced the opening of a Digital Hub in Warsaw in 2022, and by mid‑2023, it already employed 250 people. This demonstrates the structural strength of Poland’s talent ecosystem – large, highly technical, and globally competitive.
Strong STEM Education and a Culture That Actively Chooses IT Careers
Poland’s strong performance in international talent rankings is rooted in a long-standing and exceptionally robust STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education system. The country has 350 higher‑education institutions, including 48 universities and 25 technology universities, many of which have built global reputations in computer science, mathematics, and engineering.
One of the clearest indicators of this excellence is the performance of Polish students in competitive programming. The University of Warsaw and the University of Wrocław have, for decades, ranked among the world’s top performers in the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC), the most prestigious algorithmic programming competition globally. These results are not isolated successes – they reflect a systematic academic culture that develops elite problem-solving skills and trains students to operate at a world-class technical level under pressure.
Polish excellence extends beyond team competitions. Polish programmers are also known for winning top global contests individually. A recent example is Przemysław “Psyho” Dębiak, who in 2025 became the winner and only human to defeat a custom OpenAI model during the AtCoder World Tour Finals – one of the world’s most exclusive programming tournaments.
How do global HLS leaders assess this environment? The message is consistent. As Bijoy Sagar, Chief IT & Digital Transformation Officer at Bayer, put it:
The decision to expand our global digital and IT footprint into Warsaw was OBVIOUS, considering the quality of highly talented IT professionals and graduates across Poland.
Another important factor is cultural. Beyond formal education, Poland benefits from a unique societal dynamic: IT is widely perceived as a career of choice. According to Newseria’s analysis of Google search trends, the most frequently searched career-related question in Poland is: “How to become a developer?” In many other countries, top aspirations include “pilot”, “writer”, or “YouTuber”. In Poland, it is programming.
This cultural orientation fuels a continuous inflow of ambitious new talent into IT. Combined with institutional strength and individual excellence, it explains why Poland’s STEM ecosystem consistently produces highly skilled digital professionals, why so many young Poles aspire to join the sector, and why Poland stands out as one of the world’s most attractive locations for building digital operations.
High Operational Efficiency at Competitive Cost – Without Quality Trade-offs
Poland stands out in Europe as a location where global companies can achieve high operational efficiency at significantly lower total operating costs, while maintaining – and often raising – the quality of their digital operations. This efficiency results not only from the size and skill level of Poland’s digital talent pool, but also from cultural and structural factors, including a strong work ethic, adaptability, and decades of experience in global-scale cooperation within international corporations.
One of the foundational elements is the country’s significantly lower general salary levels compared to Western Europe (€1,800 per month in Poland in 2025, comparable to €4,500 in Germany and €3,200 in France), as well as lower software engineer remuneration (around €35 per hour in Poland). Beyond salaries, overall business expenses are substantially lower than in Western Europe – from modern office space (where prime Warsaw rents remain far below those in Western capitals) to general administrative costs.
These cost advantages are paired with the already mentioned innovation and digital skills, as well as with notable strengths in workforce integration. Over recent decades, Poland has attracted over a million foreign professionals and workers and around 300,000 companies with foreign capital, creating a workforce highly accustomed to cross-border, multicultural collaboration – a critical success factor for HLS digital operations that rely on distributed teams.
Importantly, operational efficiency also drives corporate decisions. Astellas Pharma, which opened its Global Capability Centre in Warsaw in 2025, explicitly highlights this dimension in its global strategy, noting it together with the access to talent in the company’s Integrated Report 2025:
In light of the evolving external environment and the need for greater operational efficiency, we are consolidating certain currently dispersed activities into three global capability centers located in Poland, India and Mexico. This initiative not only aims to optimize our operations but also positions us to leverage a diverse talent pool, enhancing our agility and fostering innovation in a rapidly changing market.
Together, these factors make Poland one of the few worldwide locations where global companies can build highly professional, large-scale digital capabilities with both economic and qualitative advantages – enabling faster delivery, lower risk, and a substantial increase in innovation velocity.
A Stable and Business-Friendly Environment in the Heart of Europe
Poland’s long-term macroeconomic and regulatory stability, along with its geographical location, are among its strongest incentives. As part of the European Union and NATO, Poland is among the world's best and most predictable economies. Its economic performance has consistently outpaced EU averages for two decades. Since joining the EU in 2004, Poland has maintained one of the fastest convergence rates in Europe, with its economy doubling in size over two decades. As a result, according to the World Bank, Poland’s GDP per capita (PPP) in 2024 was approximately $51,263, compared with the United Kingdom at about $60,620 and Japan at roughly $52,039, and, as noted increasingly often by Western economic media and analysts, Poland is poised to surpass either Japan or the UK in the coming years.
Poland’s regulatory environment is also a major advantage. All business operations – including digital, data, and AI functions in healthcare – operate under predictable EU‑harmonized rules, covering areas such as corporate compliance, data processing (GDPR), cybersecurity (NIS2), sustainability (CSRD), and product regulation. These frameworks offer global HLS companies a secure legal foundation for clinical data processing, digital innovation, and cross-border collaboration.
Another important factor is Poland's location in the heart of Europe, at the crossroads of the world's key economic regions (North America and Asia) and Europe (Western Europe, the Nordics, and the Balkans). This perspective is shared by industry leaders. Here is a comment from Łukasz Wielochowski, Head of Moderna Enterprise Solution Hub (MESH), a new strategic center created by the industry leader in Warsaw in 2022 and now the biggest Moderna entity outside the USA:
The decision to choose Warsaw as the location for our business center, Moderna Enterprise Solution Hub (MESH), was based on several key factors. Poland’s stable economic and political environment is crucial for our long-term growth strategy. With its strategic location in Central and Eastern Europe, Warsaw serves as an ideal hub connecting our operations across European, American, and Asian markets.
Poland’s stability and strategic location made the country a great place for foreign companies and specialists. As a result, Poland has developed a business culture that is cooperative, English-friendly, and comfortable working with multinational teams. Combined with other factors, this creates a business landscape that is both stable and globally oriented. For HLS companies, this translates into predictable, regulation-aligned, and low-risk conditions for building digital capabilities that must operate in highly regulated global environments.
World-Class Infrastructure and Excellent Conditions for Global Digital Operations
In a digital-first global economy, infrastructure quality is a critical determinant of where companies place their technology hubs. Poland distinguishes itself as a country with world-class digital, physical, and business infrastructure, fully capable of supporting advanced IT, data, and AI operations at a global scale.
This strength was particularly visible during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Poland – unlike many countries – transitioned to remote work smoothly and without major disruption. Widespread access to high-quality broadband, a strong base of IT-enabled industries, and modern workplace norms enabled companies across sectors to sustain operations with minimal interruptions.
Poland’s infrastructure edge is also strengthened by major EU-backed investments: Poland is developing gigabit-speed broadband, 5G networks, and high-capacity digital infrastructure. Additionally, Poland is actively competing to host one of the EU’s planned AI gigafactories – large-scale high-performance computing centers designed to support the training of next-generation AI models. Poland has also emerged as one of the EU’s strongest cybersecurity leaders, developing advanced capabilities, hosting major cyber initiatives, and collaborating closely with NATO and strategic partners.
Physical infrastructure has likewise undergone deep modernization, extensively supported by EU cohesion funds. Poland now offers one of Europe’s most modern networks of roads, rail, airports, and logistics hubs, alongside a strong and growing portfolio of high-quality office spaces (demand for offices has risen sharply, with Warsaw ranked the third most attractive European city for property investment in 2026). These strengths align closely with the priorities of global HLS leaders. As Moderna’s CEO Stéphane Bancel put it, commenting on MESH development in Poland’s capital:
Warsaw is a compelling location for this global business services hub given its access to talent, costs of operations, business climate, and infrastructure quality.
Infrastructure quality is not simply a supporting factor – it is a decisive enabler of global digital transformation. In Poland, it is one of the strongest arguments for locating digital, AI, data, and cybersecurity capabilities in the country. Together, these infrastructure advantages provide the reliability, scalability, and digital capacity required by all innovative companies operating at a global scale.
The five factors outlined above make one conclusion unmistakably clear: the expansion of global Healthcare & Life Sciences digital hubs into Poland is neither accidental nor opportunistic. It is a logical and highly pragmatic response to what the industry needs and what Poland uniquely delivers.
With the largest tech talent pool in Central and Eastern Europe, excellent IT skills and innovation, competitive operational efficiency, predictable EU‑aligned regulations, strong infrastructure, and a strategic geographic location, Poland offers unique conditions for building advanced digital, AI, data, and cybersecurity capabilities on a global scale.
This alignment explains why so many leading companies have already chosen to build strategic digital operations in the country. Moreover, given these structural advantages, the continued arrival of new international HLS players – both large global leaders and specialized innovators – is not only likely but highly predictable in the years ahead.
Winged IT – Your One‑Stop Shop for Building and Scaling Digital Teams in Poland
As global Healthcare & Life Sciences organizations accelerate their digital transformation, many are now exploring how to build or expand their technology footprint in Poland. Whether your company is preparing to enter the country for the first time or already operates here and wants to scale further, Winged IT is your one‑stop shop for creating and developing high‑performing tech teams in Poland.
With a team of over 130 consultants, we have supported more than 100 global market leaders and fast‑growing innovators across four continents. This gives us a deep understanding of what international organizations expect from their Polish operations and how to deliver digital capabilities that align fully with global standards, governance frameworks, and delivery models.
Tailor‑Made Technology Teams – Built Exactly Around Your Needs
Instead of predefined outsourcing models or generic team compositions, Winged IT builds dedicated, custom‑assembled engineering teams designed precisely around your organization and long‑term goals:
- your product roadmap, delivery rhythm, and compliance requirements,
- your architecture, stack, and tooling,
- your standards, processes, and ways of working.
Every team is assembled from the ground up – a dedicated digital capability built specifically for your organization, regardless of whether the engineers join you directly or work through one of our flexible engagement models.
Proven Experience – Including Complex HLS Digital Operations
Winged IT has successfully delivered projects for clients across industries and regulated environments, with a strong track record in:
- Healthcare & Life Sciences,
- Banking and FinTech,
- Telecommunications,
- Aerospace, and more.
Our experience enables us to immediately understand the expectations of global organizations – from skill requirements and regulatory constraints to security, documentation quality, audit readiness, traceability, and operational resilience. We know what it takes to build digital teams that deliver reliably, predictably, and at scale in Poland.
Comprehensive Support for Companies Entering or Expanding in Poland
For organizations newly entering Poland – and those already here preparing for rapid growth – Winged IT provides end-to-end support across the entire expansion journey:
- guidance on the Polish tech landscape, talent availability, and operating models,
- legal and operational advisory at the planning stage, including choosing the best location, liaising with local administration, and defining the optimal employment approach (remote‑first, office-based, or hybrid),
- full‑cycle recruitment of top engineering and digital talent,
- flexible engagement models (direct hire, Employer of Record, staff augmentation),
- advisory on onboarding, scaling, retention, and employer branding.
This combination of capabilities ensures a smooth, low-risk, and efficient entry into Poland, with teams that quickly become a natural part of your global operations.
If Poland is on your radar, choose a partner who truly knows the terrain.
Winged IT will build the tailor-made tech team that accelerates your global success – whether you're a global leader, a fast-growing scale-up, or an ambitious startup in Healthcare & Life Sciences.
Get in touch with us to discuss your plans or schedule a short strategy call with the authors, Wiktor Tarnawski and Anna Stolarz.
