Thanks to global downsizing, the rapid rise of CROs and mounting pricing pressures, the R&D spends of the world's biggest drug developers remained flat last year, according to a report. The top 30 drugmakers spent a combined $112 billion on R&D in 2013, according to GlobalData, a fairly negligible 0.6% increase over the prior year. While the likes of Novartis ($NVS) and Johnson & Johnson ($JNJ) up the ante on their research programs, Merck ($MRK) and Pfizer ($PFE), among the many biopharma outfits scaling back R&D, helped weigh down overall spending, GlobalData said. Report