A report examining 56 countries’ contributions to the global biopharmaceutical sector based on their respective national policies was released this month. It found that the US, Switzerland and Taiwan are the top three countries whose innovations in life sciences are helping grow the biopharma industry, while India, South Africa and Thailand have policies that are most hindering innovation due to low investments in life sciences. Rankings of countries were based on three indicators: Biologics Data Exclusivity, Pharmaceutical Price Controls and Government R&D Expenditure on Health. According to the Battelle Memorial Institute, from 2002 to 2013, 5.9 patents were produced on average for every $100 million spent in NIH-funded R&D. The top three countries to invest the most in health R&D as a share of GDP are the UK at 33.4%, Denmark at 32.4% and Colombia at 32.1%; in contrast, the countries that invested the least were Turkey at 0.9%, Israel at 1.1% and Bulgaria at 2.9%. As a share of GDP, Austria ranks highest with health R&D equaling 1.1% of GDP and Iceland follows with 1.0%. Health R&D in Finland, South Korea, Sweden, Denmark and the US makes up 0.9% of each countries’ GDPs.

Source: Information Technology and Innovation Foundation