According to a survey conducted earlier this year by biotechnologie.de for the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, in 2009, there were 531 firms “occupied primarily with biotech” in Germany, a 6.0% increase. The number of employees at these companies grew 3.5% to 14,950. However, revenues declined 0.3% to €2,184 million ($2,914 million), and R&D spending was down 1.4% to €1,046 million. Lab reagents and services accounted for 57% of the industry’s revenues. The average age of these firms was nine years, with 45% having less than 10 employees and 42% having 10–50 employees. Forty-five percent are active in health/medical applications, 36% reported activity in various fields, 10% are involved in industrial biotech, 5% are focused on agricultural biotech, and 4% are active in bioinformatics. Biotech companies had 102 biologically active substances under development in 2009. Last year, only 18 venture-capital financing rounds were completed, which raised €142 million, down 29.7%. Publicly listed firms increased their equity 29.8% to €122 million. An estimated 202 research institutes are active in biotech, with 26,789 employees working in biotech, 55% of which work at universities.

Source: biotechnologie.de