Matej Mikulic
Research expert covering health, pharma & medtech
Pharmaceutical research and development (R&D) – statistics & facts
There were over 5,500 pharmaceutical companies with active research and development (R&D) pipelines in 2023. The discovery of new medicines and the improvement of existing ones is vital for the continued growth of the industry, and more than 21,000 drugs were in the global R&D pipeline in 2023. The R&D response to the COVID-19 pandemic has made headlines worldwide, and the relentless work of pharma companies and research groups continues to support the development of effective vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics. However, the process of bringing new drugs to market is lengthy, complex, and costly.
The rise of R&D investment
The quest for breakthroughs is becoming more and more expensive: the combined R&D expenditure of the U.S. pharma industry totaled over 100 billion U.S. dollars in 2022. Some financial experts feel this level of investment is wasteful and highlight the fact that the industry spends more than one fifth of its revenues on R&D projects. It is clear that spending does not automatically lead to profits, and the average return on R&D investment is low. In the biopharmaceutical industry, companies with a large market capitalization have seen their rate of return decline steadily over the past decade. Because all these facts, outsourcing research and development activities to contractors has become one of the major trends in the industry.Why do companies invest in R&D?
Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche had the largest R&D pipeline as of early 2023, with nearly 200 drugs in its development portfolio. Many companies rely on discovering previously unknown drugs to fill their R&D pipeline, but adding value to existing products is also important. During the race for a COVID-19 vaccine, pharma companies stood to gain by becoming the first to market a safe product, and several have increased their market capitalization as a result of being involved in the research.The characteristics of the R&D pipeline
The R&D pipeline is fraught with difficulties. In the United States, the probability of a new drug successfully progressing from phase II to phase III is less than 30 percent, for example. Pharma companies continue to unlock innovations in the fight against various cancers, paving the way for more anticancer drugs in the R&D pipeline – the immunological cancer treatments category was the top therapeutic area worldwide in 2023. The rise of biotech drugs is expected to continue over the coming years, but drugs that are primarily made from synthetic chemical sources still account for roughly half of those in the R&D pipeline.
