The innovative pharmaceutical industry maintains its role as a leading sector in R&D investment and exports in Europe, but loses positions worldwide, surpassed by the USA and now also by China.
For the first time, China has overtaken Europe as the creator of new active ingredients, with 25 compared to the 17 of the old continent, and far from the USA, which had already snatched the crown in the 2000s.
The sector invests 50 billion euros in research, directly employs 900,000 people and produces almost 400 billion euros worth of products.
Farmaindustria.es
In addition to driving medical and scientific progress through the research, development and marketing of new drugs that improve the health and quality of life of patients around the world, the innovative biopharmaceutical industry is a key asset for the European economy.
It invests 50 billion euros in the research and development of new drugs; employs 900,000 people – 130,000 of whom work in the R&D departments of pharmaceutical companies; produces 390 billion euros worth of products; exports 680 billion euros; and contributes 200 billion euros to the trade balance of the EU-27.
These are the figures provided by the report The Pharmaceutical Industry in Figures 2024, with data for 2023, published by the European Federation of the Pharmaceutical Industry (Efpia), to which Farmaindustria belongs. The document concludes that the pharmaceutical industry can play a key role in returning Europe to growth and ensuring future competitiveness in a globalized economy.
Farmaindustria.es
According to data from the European Union’s statistical portal, Eurostat, the pharmaceutical industry is the high-tech sector with the highest value added per employee and is also the sector with the highest ratio of R&D investment to net sales. Also, according to the 2023 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard report, healthcare industries invested more than €260 billion in R&D in 2022, representing almost 21% of the total of all industrial sectors worldwide.
However, the sector faces major challenges. In addition to regulatory hurdles and rising R&D costs, “the sector has been severely affected by the impact of fiscal austerity measures introduced by most European governments since 2010,” Efpia’s report reads. Added to this is the rapid growth of biomedical R&D in emerging markets such as Brazil, China, Korea and India, which is involving a gradual migration of drug R&D activities from Europe to these new growth areas.
In fact, for the first time, China has overtaken Europe as the creator of new active ingredients, with 25 compared to 17 from the old continent. The United States continues to lead this ranking with 28 out of a total of 90 new molecules, a position it snatched from Europe after a strong commitment to biomedical R&D between 1995 and 2005 and which has been consolidating and increasing over the last decade.
“We need to recover the competitiveness lost in Europe with respect to the United States and Asia through new European pharmaceutical legislation that protects industrial property and promotes innovation,” stresses the director of Farmaindustria’s International Department, Iciar Sanz de Madrid. But the proposed revision of pharmaceutical legislation presented by the European Commission, although it has positive aspects, includes other measures that would increase this loss of competitiveness.
In fact, for the first time, China has overtaken Europe as the creator of new active ingredients, with 25 compared to 17 from the old continent. The United States continues to lead this ranking with 28 out of a total of 90 new molecules, a position it snatched from Europe after a strong commitment to biomedical R&D between 1995 and 2005 and which has been consolidating and increasing over the last decade.
“We need to recover the competitiveness lost in Europe with respect to the United States and Asia through new European pharmaceutical legislation that protects industrial property and promotes innovation,” stresses the director of Farmaindustria’s International Department, Iciar Sanz de Madrid. But the proposed revision of pharmaceutical legislation presented by the European Commission, although it has positive aspects, includes other measures that would increase this loss of competitiveness.
Farmaindustria.es
