The Economic and Social Council advises the Government to promote investment in R&D

Source: www.actasanitaria.es

Farmaindustria has reported that the Economic and Social Council (CES), a consultative body of the Government in socio-economic and labor matters, published a comprehensive analysis of the industrial sector in Spain, in which it issues a series of recommendations for public administrations to make a determined commitment to a productive model based on R&D.

In its report ‘Industry in Spain: Proposals for its development‘, this body urges the Executive and other authorities with competences in the economic or social field to build a State Pact for Industry. “The strengthening of the industry is an indispensable condition for combining growth, employment, environmental sustainability, social cohesion and territorial structuring,” he says.

The main measures proposed by this body attached to the Ministry of Employment and Social Security and composed of 61 members of business and union organizations, as well as consumers and users and specialists in matters within the competence of the Council, revolve in relation to creating a new strategy for the R&D, which fundamentally involves “increasing public and private investment in this field to converge with the European average”.

The commitment to R&D is an essential aspect for the pharmaceutical industry to continue discovering and developing new drugs. In fact, currently, the pharmaceutical sector invests in R&D in Spain almost twice as many resources as the aeronautics and almost five times more than the computer / electronic, and it is the industrial sector that invests most in R&D (20% of total industrial business expenditure on R&D).

Investment in Spain

Specifically, according to the latest ‘Survey of R&D Activities’, of Farmaindustria, the sector invested in Spain in 2017 a total of 1,147 million euros in R&D, the historical maximum of this industry, which also represents a 5.7 percent more than the previous year.

The ESC emphasizes that industrial development must be based largely on current sectors and, therefore, considers the development of new products and businesses in those sectors “necessary”, “thereby promoting R & D & I and working on cooperation with other companies and with technology centers and universities ».

In this regard, the aforementioned report advises «fostering greater synergies between public and private R&D systems, between universities and public research centers with industrial companies», an aspect in which the pharmaceutical industry in Spain is also a pioneer .

Of the total of those 1,147 million investment in R&D, Farmaindustria points out that almost half, 47.2 percent (542.1 million), corresponded to research projects developed in collaboration with hospitals and public and private research centers (outside the walls), a chapter that grew almost 10 percent in a year and that consolidates the pharmaceutical industry in the main mobilizer of the research fabric in Spain, and especially in public research.

In Distefar we join the request that we continue to invest in the sector to continue advancing in research projects.