Company: Celgene ($CELG)
Based: Summit, NJ
R&D budget: $1.13B (€833M)
Change from 2009: +43.1%
Net sales spent on R&D: 30.8%

Celgene vaults into our third-place slot this year, up from fifth in 2010 after a 43% increase in its R&D budget gave it a spot in the exclusive ranks of the billion-dollar-plus biotech club. That money is being invested in a broad pipeline of new drugs for cancer and inflammation.

The developer has been an active deal-maker. Celgene bought Gloucester Pharmaceuticals in late 2009 for $340 million in cash and another $300 million in milestones, adding its treatments for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma to the pipeline. Abraxis was snagged for $2.9 billion in the summer of 2010, adding Abraxane to its list of marketed drugs while beefing up its pipeline of cancer drugs.

Celgene announced earlier this year that it is partnering with Acceleron on a new, early-stage approach to treating anemia, paying $25 million upfront and promising $217 million in milestones to partner on ACE-536. Acceleron will keep the U.S. co-promotion rights to ACE-536 in the deal, with a double-digit royalty stream due on worldwide sales. Celgene also partnered with the fast-growing Foundation Medicine on cancer diagnostics earlier this year.

Celgene says it is conducting more than 25 late-stage trials on new products or new indications for its existing therapeutics.