Medical devices sector clocked 27 per cent growth in year-on-year patent volume in 2015 followed by pharmaceutical industries 4 per cent growth. Biotechnology which saw a -2 percent move, logged a year-over-year decline in patent volume in 2015.
This is the finding of the 2016 State of Innovation Report: Disruptive, Game-Changing Innovation study, released today by the Intellectual Property & Science business of Thomson Reuters, the world’s leading provider of intelligent information for businesses and professionals.
Following the reported 6 percent year-over-year decline in medical devices from the prior period, innovation in this area got a shot in the arm to become the most active of all technology sectors covered. It had the largest year- over-year increase, 27 percent, and all of its subsectors had double-digit growth, with Medical Aids & Oral Administration seeing the largest increase: 45 percent.
Medical device companies have a unique opportunity to collabovate and partner with technology and software businesses to marry their data insights with new solutions and provide valuable views to physicians and patients alike. Luckily for all of us, the sector is pulsing. A host of medical device companies, including frontrunner Medtronic, have filed patents and are in the process of developing an artificial pancreas, with the first system expected to be available for use by type 1 diabetics sometime in 2017.
Japan is home to 40 percent of the world’s top 10 Medical Device companies, including the world leader Olympus. China and South Korea also have their hands in this sector, with the Fourth Military Medical University and Samsung Electronics, respectively. Europe and the US also make contributions to the global top 10, with two and three innovators each, respectively.
In the Diagnosis Surgery subsector, Japan has 90 percent of the top 10 innovators in Asia, demonstrating the nation’s proclivity in this field. South Korea’s Samsung is the only non-Japanese company in that top 10. Germany is the clear leader in Europe, with 60 percent of the top 10 companies, and the US takes all of the top spots for North America, with Covidien at the top followed by General Electric and Boston Scientific.
The pharmaceutical industry continues to grow thanks to its branching into creative, new markets. Proof can be seen in the seven drugs expected to launch this year that Thomson Reuters predicts will achieve blockbuster sales status of more than $1 billion in revenue by 2020, with some predicted to hit $2 billion during that period.
The current pharmaceutical-success trend is a result of a concoction featuring an increased focus on rare diseases, ongoing development of more convenient Fixed Dose Combination (FDC) regimens and the continuation of the conflict between price versus access to medicines. These, alongside new treatments involving bio-organisms, several new vaccines (such as for malaria and dengue fever) and immune-therapies have given the sector a burst of adrenaline.
Collabovation is a prerequisite for future pharmaceutical growth in order to meet the health and drug needs of a larger population, especially in developing nations, and to ensure the longevity of an aging demographic as well. R&D models will increasingly shift to involve partnerships between pharmas and either their suppliers or partners, allowing each party to focus on its respective area of expertise. Testing of “virtual beings” is also expected to expedite development and trial cycles, bringing drugs to market faster and with more successful outcomes.
“The relationship between drug prices and the costs of development is expected to be a major focal point for drug companies, investors, regulators and politicians this year. With the rise of global healthcare costs, the need to demonstrate meaningful impact will be greater than ever for pharmaceutical companies. The 2016 drugs to watch are likely to figure prominently in those discussions,” said Richard Harrison, chief scientific officer,Thomson Reuters intellectual property & science.
There’s no disputing that the advent of biotechnology has created an experimental sandbox for everything from genetically manipulating DNA to modifying the composition of plants and printing drugs using bio-organisms. While this is cutting-edge work, the pace of innovation fell slightly short of where it was a year earlier.
Biotech experienced a 2 percent decline over 2014. This is after having had a 7 percent overall increase from 2013. And all but one of the subsectors, General Biotechnology, declined from the earlier period, with the steepest drops in the Diagnosis of Diseases (20 percent) and Drug Discovery (13 percent).
China, France, Germany, South Korea and the US lead the world in biotech innovation. China and the US each have three of the top 10 spots, followed by France with two, while Germany and South Korea split the remaining two. Biotechers are clear collabovators. Three of the top 10 global biotech innovators are universities and seven of the top 10 are either a university or research center. No other sector has this mix in its top 10. The trend continues beyond the global top 10 to regional sub-sector leaders in cancer treatment innovation as well, which comprises a mix of private and public institutions.
The US dominates biotech scientific-and-scholarly research output with 80 percent of the top 10. The remaining two institutions are from Europe, one of which is headquartered in the UK and the other is in Germany. Once again the Broad Institute takes the lead spot with the most impactful research, whereas MIT was bumped from second to third place by the European Molecular Biology Lab.
“Collaboration is critical to igniting innovation; we work closely with our customers, and with each other. Our spirit of collaboration extends to our 46 technology platforms, which range from adhesives and abrasives, to ceramics and light management. We leverage those technologies across all our businesses and subsidiaries to create unique and relevant products for customers,” said Inge Thulin, chairman, president & CEO, 3M.
The study also tracks global scientific literature publications as a window into the scientific and scholarly research that typically precedes discovery and the protection of innovation rights. Total scientific literature production, in contrast to overall patent volume, has posted a year-over-year decline, suggesting a potential slowdown in future innovation growth.
The total volume of new scientific research has declined 19 percent over the last year and 27 percent since 2009.
The phenomenon of “open innovation” whereby corporations, universities, government agencies, and research institutions increasingly partner to bring new technologies to market, is evident in the increased comingling of multinational corporations and prolific scientific research institutions.
“The last year has been marked by a series of epic breakthroughs: the first autonomous cars tested on public highways, the longest-ever human space mission, the first biosimilar drug approval – all of these were made possible by disrupting conventional boundaries and testing the limits of human creativity,” said Vin Caraher, president, Intellectual Property & Science, Thomson Reuters.
“By consistently benchmarking innovation with concrete metrics on global patent and scientific literature production, we’re able to get a clear outlook on future growth areas.”