Roche heads r&d investment scoreboard
Pharma and biotech firms increase r&d investment by 6.2%
Roche, Novartis and Sanofi are among the top pharmaceutical firms headquartered in Europe to feature in the European Commission's annual industrial r&d investment scoreboard.
Indeed, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology have strengthened their position as the biggest sector in terms of r&d, with investment growing by 6.2% in 2010.
However, EU companies generally continue to lag behind major competitors from the US and some Asian economies, according to The 2011 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard.
On a brighter note, the Scoreboard shows that r&d investment by the 400 EU companies in the ranking recovered strongly in 2010, with a 6.1% increase to €132bn, following a 2.6% decrease in 2009. Global r&d investment rose by 4% after a 1.9% drop in 2009.
Europe has 15 companies in the top 50, with Roche from Switzerland occupying the top spot. Novartis of Switzerland comes in at 8th and Sanofi of France at 14th.
Other pharmaceutical and biotechnology players accounting for high shares of r&d investment growth include Denmark’s Novo Nordisk and Morphosys of Germany.
The world’s top 10 companies by their total r&d investment in 2010 are led by Roche and then Pfizer (US). Merck US is 5th, Novartis 8th and Johnson & Johnson 10th.
US companies’ r&d investment in 2010 increased by 10% (after a 5.1% decrease in 2009). Asian firms continued to show very strong growth in r&d investment levels, including 29.5% for Chinese companies and 20.5% for those from South Korea.
The 1,400 companies in the Scoreboard employed more than 40 million people in 2010, a 3% increase over 2009.