Significant drop in pharma applications to EPO shows pace of innovation is dropping

The European Patent Office (EPO) has reported an increase in the number of patent filings for the fifth consecutive year. According to the EPO’s annual report, released today, both the biotech and pharma sectors remain in the top ten for applications at eighth and tenth respectively.

Biotech applications have risen significantly, with 5,905 applications compared to 5,269 in 2013 – an increase of 12.1%. However, there was a 5.4% reduction in pharma applications, from 5,568 to 5,270.

The USA had the most applications for both sectors, while Germany was the leading European country. Dutch biotech company DSM was the top biotech applicant with 553 and Swiss pharma major Novartis (NOVN: VX) s was the top pharma applicant with 135. In total, there were 274,174 filings in 2014, up 3.% on 2013. The number of filings from within the UK rose by 4.8%, from 6,510 to 6,823, with 2,072 granted patents representing an increase of 0.5% on the previous year. China saw significant growth, up 18.2% on last year, while the USA grew by 6.8%.