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Pharmaceuticals/Biopharmaceuticals
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Pharmaceuticals/Biopharmaceuticals

Pharmaceuticals/Biopharmaceuticals

Pharmaceutical/biopharmaceutical companies research, develop, manufacture and distribute drugs for human or veterinary use. The industry has several component subsectors:

  • Innovator drugs, developed through extensive R&D and clinical trials in both humans and animals; 
  • Generics, copies of innovative pharmaceuticals that contain the same active ingredients and are identical in strength, dosage form, and route of administration; 
  • Biologics, derived from living material (human, animal, microorganism or plant) and are vastly larger and more complex in structure than chemically synthesized drugs; and
  • Biosimilars, versions of biologic products that reference the originator product [1]. 

U.S.-based pharmaceutical/biopharmaceutical companies invested $97 billion in R&D in 2017 [2], with most of these investments made in the United States. Relative to other manufacturing industries, the pharmaceutical/biopharmaceutical industry invests 12 times more in R&D per employee [3] and employs the largest share of all manufacturing R&D workers in the United States. The industry directly employs more than 800,000 people in the United States [4] across a broad range of occupations, including scientific research, technical support, and manufacturing.

[1] The Catalyst, PhRMA, March 1, 2018.
[2] Research!America, U.S. Investments in Medical and Health Research and Development, 2013-2017, Published Fall 2018.
[3] NDP Analytics, IP-Intensive Manufacturing Industries: Driving U.S. Economic Growth, March 2015; http://www.ndpanalytics.com/ip-intensive-manufacturing-industries-driving-us-economic-growth-2015.
[4] TEConomy Partners for PhRMA, The Economic Impact of the Biopharmaceutical Industry 2017, National and State Estimates. https://www.teconomypartners.com/services/.

 

Pharmaceuticals/Biopharmaceuticals Market Research

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