EU pharma in numbers: a portrait of an industry at a crossroads

Along with the launch this morning of a new report on the pharmaceutical industry by the trade group European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations, EFPIA director Nathalie Moll set out her experiences and views in a blog.

“As part of my role, I am lucky enough to get to meet industry researchers working at the very cutting edge of science.  I get to see manufacturing sites in action – turning the exciting science into millions of doses of innovative therapies and vaccines. And I get to work with CEOs investing in Europe's research, development and manufacturing that will deliver the next generation of vaccines and treatments and their amazing colleagues in the companies. However, it is when everything I get to see comes together in the form of the  Pharmaceutical Industry in Figures (2022) that you get a sense of just how pivotal the research-based industry is to Europe’s economic and health future,” she noted.

Take the number of people employed in our sector: among all the data packed in this report, this is one of the numbers that translates most readily to people. Of course, the 840,000 individuals directly employed in Europe’s pharmaceutical sector is not the whole picture. For the industry as a whole, R&D spending in Europe has more than doubled from the year 2000, with R&D employment in our industry now estimated to be 125,000 people.

This fits an overall trend in which the industry’s contribution to the European economy has risen strongly by every measure. In the 21 years from 2000 to 2021 – in which time we’ve come through the Global Financial Crisis and a pandemic – EFPIA companies have more than doubled production, increased exports by a factor of six, and recorded a trade balance that puts it far ahead of other high-tech sectors in Europe.