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Read the Biotechnology in France Survey.

Biotechnologies France is a national database referencing all the actors in biotechnology in France.
It was opened in 1999 by the French Research Ministry.

Agence Nationale de la Recherche - new windowEuro Trans Bio - new window

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The Biotechnology in France Survey

Survey of the EPD (Evaluation and Prospective Direction)
Ministère de la Recherche et des Nouvelles Technologies - May 2003

This survey was performed by sending a questionnaire to 1400 companies selected from different databases, public and private directories, for example the France Biotech association directory, the INRA-SERD (based in Grenoble) database, the French Ministry of Research database, the Tax Credit database .. and potentially involved in the biotechnology field.

The first screening consists in selecting the companies really involved in the biotechnology business.
625 companies are concerned which provide either products, processes, services or equipments.
Among these 625 companies, 232 are companies which provide support to core biotechnology firms. 296 companies are involved either in product manufacturing or in biotechnological processes, they represent the core business and seem to be representative of a larger sample of 350 to 400 companies. The latter number is slightly greater than those published either by France Biotech and Deloitte & Touche, ie 260 or by Ernst & Young, ie 239.

These 296 companies are independant and employ less than 500 people.

More than 50% of these 296 companies are less than 6 years old (more than 50 and almost 70 companies were created in 1999 and 2000).
50% employ less than 10 people, the average staff is of 34 employees per company.
These 296 firms employ 10 000 people.
72% are manufacturing companies, 28% provide either equipments or services.

92% perform in-house R&D.
3400 employees are involved in R&D activity, among them 2500 are involved in biotech R&D activity.
It seems that only 30% of these companies file patent applications.

In respect with the number of companies, the top three regions are:

  • Ile de France: 23%
  • Rhône-Alpes: 15%
  • Alsace: 7%

Concerning R&D activities, the ranking is the same :

  • Ile de France: 45%
  • Rhône-Alpes: 15%
  • Alsace: 10%

Two thirds of these companies benefit for their research activities from public support: financial, licensing-out, human resources or materials and equipments.

Download the french version of this survey (pdf - 96 Ko)