The German biotechnology sector has been growing robustly since 2010, with R&D expenditure in the field reaching an all-time high in 2016. For the third year, biotechnology R&D spending was over €3 billion ($3.2 billion), with spending in 2016 increasing by 8% to €3.54 billion. R&D expenditure in medical biotechnology increased 6.6%, or €991 million, to in 2016. Diagnostic biotechnology has shown stable growth, with the field’s turnover increasing 9.3% to €1.79 billion in 2016, and R&D expenditure increasing 15.9% to €280 million.

Financial investments in biotechnology R&D have remained stable, although they decreased 8.2% in 2016 to €505 million. Of that figure, 42%, or €216 million, went into the private biotechnology sector, a 17% decrease, while the remainder was invested in public companies. Foreign investors took part in financing 8 of the 21, or 32%, of private financing rounds. The number of startup biotechnology companies doubled to 20 in 2016, with 14 startups in the health biotechnology sector, 4 in nonspecific services and 2 in bioinformatics.

Fifty-seven German companies have one or more products in clinical development, with 101 biologically active compounds involved in 1 of the 3 developmental phases last year. The healthy drug development pipeline is attributable to high interest in immuno-oncology and cell therapies. Biotechnology employees were also at a record high in 2016, with 20,280 people working in biotechnology companies.

Source: BIOCOM AG