According to a survey conducted earlier this year by biotechnologie.de for the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the number of German firms focused solely on biotechnology grew 2.6% in 2011 to 552. The number of employees at such firms grew 5.3% to 16,300. Revenues were also on the upswing, increasing 10.5% to €2.6 billion ($3.6 billion). However, R&D spending by such companies fell 4.4% to €975 million, the first time since 2007 such spending was less than €1 billion. Financing also declined, with investment in public and private biotech firms falling 79.1% and 77.6% to €70 million and €72 million, respectively. Health and medical applications were the main activities for 48% of the surveyed firms, followed by nonspecific applications, industrial biotech, agricultural biotech and bioinformatics for 33%, 11%, 4% and 4% of firms, respectively. The firms had 109 biologically active substances in development in 2011, and 44% each had fewer than 10 employees and 10–50 employees. A total of 33,900 people were employed in Germany’s biotech sector in 2011, 46% of whom worked at universities.

Source: biotechnologie.de