Earlier this year we made the decision to split our annual economic development report into three individual reports. In May we brought you the top five North American regions targeting biotech, and next month look for our profile of Asian drug development regions. Today FierceBiotech looks into the development scene solely in Europe to see which countries have hatched the best programs to support drug discovery and innovation.
For decades European countries have been among the most innovative on the planet when it comes to drug development. Major pharma companies like GlaxoSmithKline, Roche, Sanofi-Aventis and Novartis have nurtured top talent in their ranks, creating an intelligentsia of experienced managers and scientists skilled at recognizing the market value of new therapies. And scientists at stellar academic centers like the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and the Oxford/Cambridge university axis in the UK have produced some of the best thinking on new drugs the industry has seen.
However, the financial tsunami that hit the global biotech industry at the end of last year has been particularly brutal in Europe. With fewer private VC groups lending money, the industry has been forced to fall back on either its own resources or new government programs designed to bolster their biopharma industries. And several European countries have been pushing new public-private ventures aimed at leveraging larger funds for developers.
Click here to see this year's report on the top five biotech hotspots in Europe.