Since 1998, the auditing and consulting company EY (Ernst & Young) has been publishing the German Biotechnology Report and has thus more or less accompanied the emergence of this industry in Germany from the very beginning.
From the mid-1990s onwards biotech companies were increasingly founded in Germany as well. Thus, the industry developed about 15 to 20 years later than in the U.S., where it began with the founding of Genentech (now part of Roche) in 1974. By the mid-1990s, the number of biotech firms there had already exploded to around 1,000. Today, there are around 4,000 in the U.S. (according to BiotechGate) and Germany counted 750 companies in 2022 according to BIO Deutschland, the German Biotech Industry Association.
If you are interested, you can find further information on the history of the US and German biotech industry in my text book in chapters Two and Five. If you are looking for EY's biotech report older editions or have any questions, please contact me.
The fact that such a report exists for Germany at all is due to the initial initiative of a former board member of the German branch who brought the report first to Europe and then to Germany. Unfortunately, Alfred Müller passed away in 2007 due to brain cancer, biotech solutions could not help him yet. Current contact person at EY for the report is Klaus Ort.
The data on German biotech industry's general situation is meanwhile provided by the local industry association BIO Deutschland.
EY originally launched the biotech report in the U.S. in 1986 and thus saw the industry's enormous potential ten years after it was founded. At that time also the U.S. industry was at a crossroads according to the 1st EY biotech report ("At the Crossroad"). The other nine reports (see cover of Biotech 96) reflect the fact that even in the U.S., the beginning was not easy and was associated with strong ups and downs.
Together with the EY European Life Sciences Report (established in 1994) the U.S. biotech report merged into the EY Beyond Borders Global Biotechnology Report in 2002. It was published yearly until 2017 and then after a gap beginning again in 2022.
