Btobioinnovation.com

Author: Jean-Claude Muller, 穆卓Executive Editor at BtoBioInnovation  jcm9144@gmail.com

SPECIAL REPORT #21.9

Top 10 BioPharma R&D Budgets

We are reporting the top 10 Biopharma R&D budgets, which combined reached $96 billion in 2020, as they were disclosed by Fierce Biotech on April 6, 2021.

Several companies saw revenue reduction due to COVID-19 disruption, which partly explains some significant rises in their budget as a percentage of sales.

Roche with $13.9 billion is keeping its yearlong leading position. Merck comes in second with $13.6 billion R&D spending, a jump of 37% over the previous year. The Merck R&D spend is now as high as 28% of its sales.

Ben Adams Fierce Biotech editor on rankings: A number of reports will have different ways of assessing these budgets; we factor in spending on mergers and acquisitions and use the gross figure from each company’s full-year financial results as filed with the SEC, and convert local currencies into dollars for the final ranking.  

The top 10 pharma R&D budgets in 2020

1. Roche
   R&D budget: CHF 13 billion ($13.9 billion)
   Change from 2019: + CHF 1.3 billion
   Total 2019 revenue: CHF 58.3 billion ($62.39 billion)
   R&D budget as percentage of revenue: 22.2%
2. Merck & Co.
   R&D budget: $13.6 billion
   Change from 2019: +$3.7 billion
   Total 2019 revenue: $48 billion
   R&D budget as percentage of revenue: 28.3%
3. Johnson & Johnson
   R&D budget: $12.15B
   Change from 2019: +$790 million
   Total 2019 revenue: $82.6 billion
   R&D budget as percentage of revenue: 14.7%
4. Bristol Myers Squibb
   R&D budget: $11.14 billion
   Change from 2019: +$5 billion
   Total 2019 revenue: $42.5 billion
   R&D budget as percentage of revenue: 26%
5. Pfizer
   R&D budget: $9.4 billion
   Change from 2019: +750 million
   Total 2019 revenue: $41.9 billion
   R&D budget as percentage of revenue: 22.4%
6. Novartis
   R&D budget: $8.9 billion
   Change from 2019: -$500 million
   Total 2019 revenue: $48.65 billion
   R&D budget as percentage of revenue: 18.2%
7. GlaxoSmithKline
   R&D budget: £5.52 billion ($7.7 billion)
   Change from 2019: +£950 million ($1.3 billion)
   Total 2019 revenue: £34.09 billion ($47.51 billion)
   R&D budget as percentage of revenue: 16.1%
8. Sanofi
   R&D budget: €5.52 billion ($6.6 billion)
   Change from 2019: -€500 million
   Total 2019 revenue: €36 billion ($43.1 billion)
   R&D budget as percentage of revenue: 15.3%
9. AbbVie
   R&D budget: $6.55 billion
   Change from 2019: +$150 million
   Total 2019 revenue: $45.8 billion
   R&D budget as percentage of revenue: 14.3%
10. Eli Lilly
    R&D budget: $6.08 billion
    Change from 2019: +480 million
    Total 2019 revenue: $24.5 billion
    R&D budget as percentage of revenue: 24.8%

Paris, April 6, 2021

This document has been prepared by btobioinnovation and is provided to you for information purposes only.  The information contained in this document has been obtained from sources that btobioinnovation believes are reliable but btobioinnovation does not warrant that it is accurate or complete. The views presented in this document are those of btobioinnovation’s editor at the time of writing and are subject to change.  btobioinnovation has no obligation to update its opinions or the information in this document.