Spanish pharmaceutical R&D gets back on the growth path

Some 950 million euros ($1.06 billion) was the total amount allocated by the Spain-based pharmaceutical industry towards R&D activities in 2014, according to trade group Farmaindustria’s survey conducted on its members.

In this way, R&D investment has grown again by 2.4%, after three consecutive years of falls, which were mainly due to the hefty adjustments made during the economic crisis and where the pharmaceutical market suffered noticeably.

It is worth highlighting that 382 million euros of the invested money was allocated to research contracts with hospitals, universities and research centers, which is normally known as extramural R&D. This budgeted item has increased by almost one and a half percentage points compared with 2013, representing 41% of the total R&D investments of the pharmaceutical industry. These collaborations are fundamental for the research of new medicines, as well as for the scientific developments of public organizations and institutions, says Farmaindustria. In this regard, notwithstanding the crisis suffered during recent years, investment in this area has remained constant during the last decade, which proves how important extramural R&D is for the Spanish based pharmaceutical industry.