Medical Biotechnology Grows by 9 Percent in Spite of Economic Crisis, VFA
Release Date: 2009-07-06
A report issued by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) for VFA shows steady growth of the German biotach market.“Medical biotechnology is so far proving to be resistant to the economic crisis. The turnover of biopharmaceutical products in 2008 totaled 9 percent – twice the growth of the pharmaceutical market as a whole. With an unchanged number of around 34,000 highly-qualified employees, medical biotechnology is making an important contribution to the economic and research position of Germany,” stated Dr. Frank Mathias, Chairman of vfa bio and a member of the Board of Directors for MediGene AG, Martinsried, at the presentation of the industry report “Medical Biotechnology 2009”. The report was issued by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) for vfa bio, the interest group for biotechnology at the vfa. It analyzed the activities of German biotech start-up companies as well as larger biotech firms and pharmaceutical companies active in medical biotechnology.
“We should not allow these very good results of 2008 to make us complacent, however,” continues Mathias. “The companies should not and neither should the politicians. Research-intensive companies – as companies active in biopharmaceuticals par excellence are – must continue to reassess their decisions concerning location and the general political and economic conditions of a country play a central role in this.” This applies especially during times in which the overall situation in the real economy and in finance is troubled. Mathias therefore advocated for the introduction of tax-deductable research funding and for an improvement in the general conditions for investment, since medical biotechnology is a particularly high-risk and capital-intensive industry. Mathias expressed optimistically that such tax-deductable research funding would overcome any existing disadvantages due to location and would attract even more research to Germany.
Approximately one out of every six euros in the German pharmaceutical market was generated in 2008 by biopharmaceuticals – genetically–produced compounds – totaling 4.4 billion Euros. With a turnover of 9 percent, biopharmaceutical products achieved significantly stronger growth than the pharmaceutical market as a whole (+4%). Specific drivers of growth were medicines for disorders of the central nervous system, such as multiple sclerosis (+25%), cancer (+20%) and immunological illnesses such as rheumatoid arthritis (+17%). In this last category, biopharmaceuticals have gained a market share of 53 percent, while the market share for medicines for infectious diseases is 28 percent.
The future of medical biotechnology continues to be promising: the number of compounds in clinical testing – the pipeline – grew by 18 percent in 2008 to 419. “While in 2007 a great deal of compounds entered the third and last testing phase before approval after having good phase II results, in 2008 we see most notably that the pipeline is being filled from the bottom,” explains Mathias. The number of compounds in the first clinical phase thereby increased to 28 percent, while those in phase II grew to 22 percent.
Compounds with monoclonal antibodies make up a significant share of this growth: their number in the pipeline increased by a remarkable 28 percent within one year. These genetically produced active ingredients are devolved from molecules of the human immune system. They can selectively bond with substances or cells in the body and thereby intervene in the functioning of the disease. This opens up new possibilities for therapy for illnesses that were earlier considered barely treatable, including many inflammatory disorders and types of cancer. 19 compounds with monoclonal antibodies had been approved in Germany by the end of 2008 (and 21 by April 2009). Turnover in Germany with this group of medications has quintupled in the last five years – from 273 million to 1.2 billion Euros and its share of the turnover in biopharmaceuticals has increased from 11 to 28 percent in the same time period. Thus a success story for both the patients and the companies has been acheived with monoclonal antibodies.
| Type: | NORMAL |
| Company: | VFA |
| Country: | 德国 |