HKS Affiliated Authors
Excerpt
August 2024, Paper: "Research and development (R&D) investment in the biopharmaceutical industry drives the discovery of new drugs to address unmet medical needs and improve patient outcomes. Conventional understanding of the magnitude, intensity and productivity of R&D investment in the biopharmaceutical ecosystem is predominantly based on survey data from large, publicly listed biopharmaceutical companies (see Related links). Such measures provide an incomplete picture of the funding landscape because they ignore R&D investments made by smaller public commercial companies, development-stage public companies that have no commercial products and private companies, all of which have become increasingly important to the drug development ecosystem. A comprehensive and transparent measure of R&D investment is important for policy-making that affects the R&D ecosystem. Here, we present an analysis of global R&D investment and revenue in 2021 for the full range of companies in the biopharmaceutical ecosystem — public and private companies, at the development stage and commercial stage — using reported financial statement data and data on capital raises. The methodological strategy we propose could be used in future research to assess trends in R&D investment over time, activity in various submarkets and the impact of policy decisions."