The United States has the best biotechnology industry in the world and Europe lags far behind. At least, that is what everyone in the industry says. But how do they know? Such sweeping statements may be acceptable for lunchtime talk, but policy-makers and others with power to effect change need solid evidence.

Earlier this year, the European Commission gave the statistics-starved policy-makers exactly what they needed. The Biotechnology Innovation Scoreboard (BIS) ¹ compares the performance of the industry in each of the Member States, along with Norway, Switzerland, the United States, Canada and Japan.

The sector merits more detailed benchmarking and analysis. Along with the information and communication technology industry, biotechnology is one of the central pillars of the knowledge society. It is also a discipline that needs complex regulation to address ethical and environmental concerns while encouraging advanced research and its commercial application.

The BIS is based on the well-established European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) ². This annual benchmarking exercise measures the performance of Member States, associated countries and others against a range of indicators, ranging from public research investment to the number of science and technology graduates.

"The experimental Biotechnology Innovation Scoreboard, like the European Innovation Scoreboard, is part of the wider Trend Chart project," explains Lionel Nesta from the Science Policy Research Unit at Sussex University, one of the authors. "Our aim was to map all the innovation in the biotechnology sector and develop meaningful statistical indicators of innovation policy and performance."

The first revelation is that innovation in the industry has a geographical gradient. Performance generally improves as you move north. Smaller countries - Denmark, Sweden and Belgium in particular - dominate, and are among the two leading countries for nine out of the 12 indicators. Sweden leads in terms of biotechnology publications and the number of dedicated biotechnology firms. It also has the best public understanding of biotechnology. Denmark is the top-performing country in terms of drug approvals and US patents. The Nordic countries also have the best overall performance.

Germany, France and the UK constitute a second tier. They perform well in eight out of 11 indicators. The UK and Germany lead Europe in the number of citations per biotech paper. France comes out top for PhDs in the life sciences.

These two prominent groupings reflect distinct European approaches to biotechnology. The smaller and Nordic countries are specialised. Their focus in niche areas permits them to take world leadership. The three largest countries, on the other hand, have a high volume of activity spread across a range of interests.

The BIS also confirms the status of Europe in global biotechnology innovation. "Yes, Europe does lag behind the US," says Nesta. "Although the best performing countries can compare with the United States, overall we are still behind."

"The BIS is what national and European policy-makers needed," Nesta continues. "It provides a framework for rapidly mapping each country's performance. If they see that they come out badly in the generation of published articles, for example, they can use this information to create policies to improve the situation."

But Nesta warns policy-makers not to get too excited. "This was a one-off, experimental study to see if an innovation scoreboard could be compiled for an individual sector. The single most significant result may be the discovery that we lack the necessary data to compare the industry across countries. We originally planned to use several additional indicators, such as employment in biotechnology or collaborations between public research organisations and biotech firms, but we found that there is no publicly available data. And even when numbers are available, they are compiled by different organisations in different countries, so the data is not consistent or comparable."

Nevertheless, this first BIS will provide an incentive for national governments and industry associations to produce better quality data. "We need help from industry associations to compile these numbers in a consistent way. Even though the industry may not use the Scoreboard directly, they will still benefit if it helps policy-makers to make well-informed decisions that drive biotechnology forward."

The limitations of this Scoreboard should not obscure the general trends it reveals - the BIS offers an encouraging picture of the state of biotechnology innovation across Europe. "Even if the statistics must be carefully interpreted," says Nesta, "the BIS hints at how Member States could work together to increase the EU's critical mass in biotechnology innovation." The BIS suggests that strategic co-operation could bring the EU up to a level where it could finally compete with the US.

1. The BIS may be downloaded from http://trendchart.cordis.lu/Scoreboard2002/html/download_ area/download_area.html

2. See Innovation and Technology Transfer, special edition, February 2003.

Contact

L. Nesta, Science Policy Research Unit,

University of Sussex Tl. +44 1273 873 087 L.J.J.Nesta@sussex.ac.uk

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