China set to overtake USA bioscience market

Bioscience research in China is set to overtake the USA within the next five to ten years, data from antibody search engine CiteAb suggests.

CiteAb, spun out from the University of Bath, UK, in early February 2014, has a database containing over 1.8 million antibodies from suppliers all over the world, and uses academic research citations to rank antibodies. This gives the company an overview of the amount of research being carried out in over 100 different countries.

Andrew Chalmers, founder of CiteAb, said: “Our data highlights the number of academic research papers using antibodies that are produced by each country, and therefore acts as a fantastic indicator of bioscience research activity around the world. The data we’ve pulled from CiteAb clearly shows that China is the big winner at the moment. The United States has been the most productive nation in bioscience research for a long time, but has seen a gradual decrease in output since 2010. Conversely, China’s output has been growing enormously since around 2009 and if current trends continue we expect to see China overtake the USA by as soon as 2020. To counter this, the USA will need to increase investment in bioscience research.”