Understanding the “new normal” economic landscape in the US, EU and Asia in the life sciences

Let’s start with the United States.

We can start with the sequester. Need I say more? Reduced federal funding affects not only current research budgets, but also future investments in infrastructure and training.

Oh, yes. We also have the uncertainty associated with the federal budget, healthcare reform, lack of Medicare reimbursement for new molecular diagnostic CPT codes and flattening of pharmaceutical R&D budgets.

Excitement about the strides being made regarding personalized medicine, targeted therapeutics, and better vaccines is offset by low growth or no growth budgets to fuel ongoing research. The two-year infusion of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds in 2009/2010 from the NIH provided a welcome buffer to the challenges wrought by the great recession. But now we have a different reality.

Next, Europe.

  • Continued fiscal austerity
  • Changes in healthcare institutions and funding, most notably in the UK and in France
  • Funding of research is complex and multi layered
  • European Commission Horizon 2020 initiatives
  • European Research Counsel
  • Country-specific funding

On a more positive note,

  • Cross-border collaboration is increasing
  • Leading institutions are taking action and coming together to be competitive with the U.S. in recruiting postdocs from India and China. Earlier this year, 10 top European life science institutes launched a new alliance—EU-Life—to become more competitive and speak with a unified voice on European science policy.

And now to Asia, with a focus on China

  • Government and commercial investment: > $260 billion over the next 5 years
  • 500 universities
  • More than 150,000 life science graduates per year
  • Four innovation clusters (Capital, Yangtze River Delta, Central and Pearl River)
  • 7,500 life science companies
  • 200 life science incubators
  • 100 life science parks
  • “Sea turtles” return
  • Growth in pharmaceutical market
  • Not only partnerships with global, multinational pharmaceutical companies (Pfizer, Merck, BMS) but also a focus on novel drug development
  • Aging population and increased frequency of chronic diseases

Care to share your two cents?  Join us for a discussion this week as we continue to explore this topic and how the upcoming Lab Budgets 2014 Report may be useful to you.

Register for the free webinar here: https://archive.gene2drug.com/emails/LabBudgets_2014.html