Provisional results of first biopharma league table unveiled by bioLIVE

The initial findings of the first biopharma league table have been unveiled by bioLIVE —the new bioprocessing and manufacturing event running alongside CPhI Worldwide— ranking the US at the top and China at the bottom.

This league table was created by asking global industry executives and pharmaceutical companies how they evaluated the reputations of major biomanufacturing countries across a number of characteristics, using a scoring system between one and 10.

These provisional results have demonstrated that the US is perceived as the top-ranking nation in all major categories, scoring 8.2 for ‘knowledge of professionals’, 7.9 for ‘ability to meet future capacity’, 8.0 for ‘bio innovation’ and 8.1 for ‘quality and processing. Additionally, it was top for ‘growth potential’ beating emerging bio hubs in China, Ireland, and Singapore, as well as established rivals in the UK, Japan and Germany.

Surprisingly, however, China, which has seen a surge in both innovative biotech start-ups and bioprocessing and manufacturing companies, ranked bottom in both ‘bio innovation’ and ‘quality of biological manufacturing’ — scoring less than six.

“If we look at quality and innovation — both important attributes for advancing bioprocessing technologies — the US, Germany and Japan are ranked highest, followed by several other European countries, where biomanufacturing is a mature industry,” commented bioLIVE expert, Dawn M. Ecker of BioProcess Technology Consultants. “China and India, both burgeoning markets for biologics, were not ranked as high for innovation. This perception may relate to the still developing biologics and bioprocessing industry in these regions, coupled with the knowledge of their existing reputations for mass production of generics.”

“Surprisingly, Ireland did not score as high as other European countries, despite the strong presence of biopharma manufacturing and the significant number of biomanufacturing facilities to be built here in the coming years. In this case, perception may be related to the increased demand for skilled staff, with not enough skilled staff to support the projected additional capacity growth.”

Overall, when performance across all categories is analysed, the US (7.88), Germany (7.49) and Japan (7.46) again appear as tier one nations — mirroring the results in small molecule manufacturing — with Sweden (6.95) and the UK (6.91), ranking as the best of the rest.

When comparing with the small molecule manufacturing ranking, the most notable difference was found amongst the performance of mid to high ranking countries with Sweden (6.95), Singapore (6.54), and notably, South Korea (6.69) — home of a growing biopharma sector including Samsung Biologics — performing comparably to France (6.72), Spain (6.51), Italy (6.55) and Ireland (6.81) in terms of biologics. India (6.31) and China (6.29) were adrift at the foot of the table — however, given the larger number of Indian participants in the survey data, India would finish behind China, if Indian participants were excluded.

“We are increasingly seeing a lot more bio professionals at CPhI and to announce the launch of our new bio processing and manufacturing event we wanted to explore what role reputation and perception may play,” added Rutger Oudejans, brand director at bioLIVE. “With bioprocessing and outsourcing set to rise quickly over the next few years, partnerships and investment decisions may well be impacted by the perceived status of nations verses the reality of their capabilities. We have also seen across all economies a shortage of qualified personal so certainly initiatives like NIBRT who are giving a couple of session at this year’s event will become increasingly important. Overall, our results suggest that whilst the US is clearly ahead, the majority of countries scored between six and seven, and it was very, very even. It suggests it’s a very level playing field in terms of business opportunities and that attendees at bioLIVE will be open to working with a very diverse supply chain.”