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Pharmaceuticals & biotechnology becomes the top R&D investing sector
The 2007 edition of the European Commission's annual scoreboard of companies' spending on research and development (R&D) shows that corporate R&D has increased by 10%, with EU-based companies increasing their R&D investment by 7.4%.
This compares to 5.3% growth reported in the 2006 edition. The scoreboard also shows an upward trend in companies' profitability all over the world.
Pharmaceuticals & biotechnology becomes the top R&D investing sector, overtaking the technology hardware & equipment sector. This sector is represented by many EU companies. Many pharmaceutical companies show a strong increase of R&D investment, e.g. Merck (+24.3%), AztraZeneca (+15.5%), Roche (+15.5%), Johnson & Johnson (+12.9%), GlaxoSmithKline (+10%).
"We are only ever going to improve our R&D performance if more companies see the benefit of investing in research," said European Science and Research Commissioner Janez Potocnik. "The positive upward trend in R&D investment seen in the last two years is encouraging, and leads me to believe that our innovation strategy is on the right track. But we must not allow ourselves to be complacent – quite the opposite: we should reinforce the positive measures already taken to consolidate and improve private investment in R&D."
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- IRI-The 2007 EU Industrial R&DI nvestment Scoreboard.mht
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