Investment in drug research and development (R&D) by Spain’s innovative pharmaceutical industry set a new all-time high in 2022, exceeding €1.395 million.

This is evidenced by the report “R&D in the pharmaceutical industry 2022”, prepared by Farmaindustria under the leadership of Jesús Ponce, President of the employers’ association and the pharmaceutical company Novartis. The achieved investment volume is 10.1% more than in 2021, which is the largest increase in the last 15 years and continues to consolidate the pharmaceutical industry as the first industrial sector to invest in R&D in our country, both in relative and absolute terms .

How it was collected Servicemedia60% of investments were directed to the development of clinical research, which is 5.6% more than in the previous year. The clinical trial commitments of companies in our country are increasing annually: from 479 million euros recorded in 2012 to 834 million euros in 2022, implying an increase of more than 74%. For many pharmaceutical companies, Spain is already the second-largest country in the world for clinical research activity, second only to the United States, and is involved in one out of every three studies that start in Europe.

As part of this investment, early phase (I and II) research has grown nearly 10 points over the past 10 years, representing 36.4% of the total allocated in 2022. Phase III clinical trials, those conducted with a large number of patients, maintain their weight, and the investment rate for those in phase IV, after the drug is introduced to the market, falls, although their financial distribution has remained stable in recent years.

The second largest item is the investment allocated to research in the basic and preclinical phases, the most complex, which represents an investment of 175 million euros, an increase of more than 11% compared to 2021. This is followed by 114 million devoted to technological development and another 105 million devoted to pharmacoeconomics, epidemiology and post-marketing studies.

“Patients, above all, benefit from this investment because a large part of it is aimed at launching clinical trials, which means that thousands of people in Spain have early access to the treatments of the future, to this new medicine, to this new innovative therapy. for his illness, which, if all goes well, will see the light of day four or five years later. And this, for many patients with serious illnesses, represents a unique opportunity to cure their illness,” says Juan Yermo, CEO of Farmaidustria.

The study highlights the fact that almost half of the investments in Spain, 633 million euros, were allocated to “external research”, that is, research contracts in collaboration with hospitals, universities, public and private centers. A key contribution that continues to highlight the important role that public-private collaboration plays in the sustainability of these centers and facilitating patient access to the most advanced treatments through clinical trials. According to the National Institute of Statistics (INE), the pharmaceutical industry is considered the leading sector of the Spanish economy in terms of extramural or co-investment, accounting for approximately one third of the total industrial sector.

Finally, among the data from the R&D in the Pharmaceutical Industry 2022 study, the constant increase in direct employment in companies within research departments stands out, which already stands at 5,498 people, the highest figure recorded. Moreover, this employment is egalitarian (67% of professionals working in research and development departments are women) and highly skilled: in 2022 the figure of 90% of university graduates in this field will be exceeded for the first time.