Spanish pharma industry invests more than a billion euros on r&d

Spanish pharma companies spent a record Euro 1bn on r&d in 2008, an increase of 9.6% over the previous year, according to industry group Farmaindustria.

Farmaindustria based the figure on a survey of its members, who account for 96% of prescription medicine sales in Spain.

"This year's increase and the 15% rise in 2007 are the highest over the past five years and show that the previous tendency of falling investment in r&d, which began in 2004, has been reversed," said Jesus Acebillo, president of Farmaindustria.

Almost half the outlay, â"šÂ¬453m, was spent on clinical investigation, the survey found.

Between 2002 and 2008 r&d expenditure grew by 17% on Phase II trials, 14% on Phase III trials and 4% on Phase IV trials.

Of the total, 39% (â"šÂ¬395m) was for external research contracted out to hospitals, universities and public health centres, while the rest (â"šÂ¬614m), was internal investment by Spain's pharma companies.

Spain's north-eastern region of Catalonia, where some of the country's best hospitals and universities are located, accounted for â"šÂ¬89m of the external r&d spend, followed by Madrid (â"šÂ¬86m), Andalusia (â"šÂ¬32m) and Valencia (â"šÂ¬31m).

Spanish companies spent â"šÂ¬94m on research outside the country.

Last year â"šÂ¬192m was spent on biotech r&d, or 20% of all pharma r&d.

"This is the first time the biotech element has been included in the survey of our members, who reported there were 49 molecules under development mostly in the therapeutic areas of oncology, diabetes, cardiovascular and haematology," said Acebillo.