The pharmaceutical world is littered with innovation pitfalls. With longer product cycles, several layers of regulatory approval and various global hurdles to overcome, patent volumes in the pharmaceutical industry are often dwarfed by those of fast-moving industries.
And even when drug patents are issued, a vast array face litigation, as rivals look to gain a competitive advantage over one another. But that doesn’t mean life sciences companies aren’t making some serious strides toward changing the future of this space.
In the latest edition of its annual The Future is Open: State of Innovation Report 2016, Clarivate Analytics researchers tracked global intellectual property data, including scientific literature and patents, as a window into innovation across 12 bellwether technology areas: aerospace; automotive; nanotechnology; computing and peripherals; cosmetics; domestic appliances; food, tobacco and beverage fermentation; medical devices; petroleum; pharmaceuticals; semiconductors and telecommunications.
For each industry, analysts scrutinised 5 years of global patent and scientific literature publications, outlining the top companies, research institutions and technology areas producing the highest volume of new innovation. According to the research, the pharmaceutical industry is thriving, fuelled by a specific sector.
The category experienced 4% year-on-year growth, with the most significant increase coming in a burgeoning inorganics sector.
This growth in 2015 was a symptom of an evolving landscape in the industry. The current pharmaceutical success trend is a result of a concoction featuring an increased focus on rare diseases, ongoing development of more convenient fixed dose combination (FDC) regimens and the continuation of the conflict between price and access to medicines.
These, alongside new treatments involving bio-organisms, several new vaccines (including malaria and dengue fever) and immune-therapies, have given the sector a burst of adrenaline.
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