The Biotechnology Industry over 30 Billion in Revenue

12-07-2010: The Spanish Bioindustry Association (ASEBIO) introduced the ASEBIO Annual Report 2009 with the most recent data from the biotechnology industry, with the attendance of the Minister for Science and Innovation, Cristina Garmendia.

Among these data, a noticeable increase in the bioindustry turnover is shown, reaching 31.1 billion euros in 2008, an 18.9% increase over the previous year, according to the Biotechnology Module in the Technological Innovation Survey collected in the ASEBIO Report 2009.

The number of companies engaged in biotechnology-related activities amounted to 942 in 2008, with a growth rate of 23.3% over previous year. Of these, 305 are dedicated biotech companies.

The total employment figure is 108,374 workers for 2008, 4.3% higher than the previous year, and private domestic R&D expenditure in biotechnology equals 460 million euros in 2008, a 22.5% higher. This figure is twice bigger as compared to what was allocated to R&D in 2005, which reached 201 million euros, comprising the great efforts in R&D the companies who use biotechnology in their business are doing.

The Minister for Science and Innovation, Cristina Garmendia, explained that "year after year, ASEBIOs reports have been certifying the exponential growth of the Spanish biotechnology industry. The track record over the eleven years of life of the Association is just unbelievable. Along with the great thrust of the productive sector I find it necessary to focus on the large investment efforts made by the Government of Spain in the recent years, as shown by the EUR 958 million allocated to R&D+i in the biotechnology realm from 2005 to 2008."

"We are very pleased with the evolution shown by the biotech market in Spain; however, we need a stable environment to develop our investments and more focus is required from all the stakeholders in the country who are involved in this industry, not only the central government and other authorities but also private investors", said the Chairman of ASEBIO, José María Fernández Sousa-Faro.

The Science Park of Madrid, jointly with ASEBIO, has identified 430 biotechnological inventions within 2009. Of these, 84% are requests and the remaining 16% pertain to the applications granted. The amount of inventions submitted via the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (SPTO), being 57% of the whole, stands out, followed by Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) and United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) files.

More than 50% of these inventions pertain to ASEBIO institutions and for about 40% of them, a business is the holder. The companies who are partnering with ASEBIO significantly increase the volume of data over the previous year, with 117 applications and 42 awards identified - most of them were submitted via PCT, followed by the U.S. registry. Most of these corporations operate in the field of human health, followed at some distance from those working in the area of food biotechnology.

As for scientific publications, from Spanish companies in various magazines or specialized media, a total of 177 impacts were counted, belonging to 24 entities. As compared with the previous year (140 impacts from 22 companies), this shows the increased activity of these companies. The regions where more firms were created were Andalusia, with 26% of the total, followed by Catalonia with 24%; Valencia, with 9% and Madrid, with 7%. Besides, there were 101 alliances accounted during this year, 42% of them were executed between biotech companies and public entities, 38% jointly with another biotech company and 28% with businesses with a user profile.

Among the financial operations conducted by private parties, in the last year Cellerix (Grupo Genetrix) stands off, heading the list for an amount of 27.2 million euros. This is the second round of international financing of this Spanish company, who are working in the development of medicinal products from stem cells, with the involvement of Ysios Capital Partners, Life Science Partners, Ventech, Bankinter, Capital Riesgo Madrid, JV Risk Technologies and with the key contribution of the Genetrix Group.

The second largest operation in the year, even though being closed at the beginning of 2010, was made by the biopharmaceutical division of Lipotec Group, GP-Pharm, through a syndicated loan. This operation, for a total of 20 million euros, had the involvement of the following entities: Caixa Catalunya, Banco de Sabadell, Bancaja, Institut Catalá de Finances and the Official Credit Institute (Instituto de Crédito Oficial, ICO). In turn, Noscira, a Zeltia Group company, obtained a third round of funding, reaching 11.1 million euros. This operation in 2009 was underwritten by private investors.

ASEBIO recommends the implementation of a series of tax incentives to provide liquidity to the companies. This Association proposes to establish a number of measures in terms of percentages of the deduction to be applied for R&D in biotechnology in the corporate income tax, to limit the application of the deduction for research and development and innovation in biotechnology activities and to encourage investors in order to achieve a greater dynamism of the biotechnology industry.

First time ever, ASEBIO's partnering companies consider Internationalisation as their priority for 2010 and the biggest barrier to achieving this is the lack of financial resources. The maturation of the business plans and the need for access to new markets in the current difficult economic times, are partly responsible for turning the foreign business into a priority in the growth strategy of the Spanish biotechnology industry.

In any case, the need for Internationalisation is not new, since approximately 35% of ASEBIO's partners do have some degree of international activity (5% higher than last year), being these activities mainly exporting products or services, the involvement in the 7th Framework Programme of the European Union and also alliances / collaborations with international research -international sales amounts 500 million euros. The contribution of international activities to the turnover of the companies was on average 26% in 2009.

The markets that businesses believe are priorities in their strategy for Internationalisation and for the industry as a whole, are primarily and almost equally located in the European Union countries, mainly in countries like UK, Italy, Germany, Portugal, France and the Nordic countries and the United States. Following these, we find countries like Canada, China, Brazil, Japan, Singapore and the American Southern Cone.