Methodology

In  December 2004, the OECD standardised the huge range of existing definitions of the term biotechnology. Since then, all OECD countries have been called upon to carry out surveys on biotechnology, following the so-called Framework for Biotechnology Statistics (www.oecd.org). The OECD recognises two different categories of companies within the biotech industry: dedicated biotechnology company and other biotechnologically active companies. The first of these definitions, according to the OECD, applies to biotechnologically active enterprises, whose core company goals are the application of biotechnological procedures in the manufacturing of products, the supply of services or in the execution of biotechnological research and development.

Unlike the dedicated biotech companies, the central aims of other biotechnologically active companies do not exclusively lie in the application of biotechnological procedures. The OECD thereby also includes in this category companies where biotechnology makes up only one part of the business activity. Companies are defined as biotechnologically active companies if they use biotechnological procedures for recently developed or significantly improved products or production processes. The central company aims must not be solely in the use of biotechnological procedures for the production of products, the supply of services or in the execution of biotechnological research and development. Examples of such companies are pharma firms, chemical companies or seed manufacturers.

For the purposes of this survey, biotechnologie.de has compiled a questionnaire, which is based on the OECD definition as described above. Between January and March 2014, a total of 774 companies were contacted and requested to complete the survey. When deciding on the company selection, the OECD definition was used alongside an adjustment with the company database at BIOCOM AG. 536 of the companies answered either by questionnaire or by telephone, corresponding to a verification rate of 72 %.

In accordance with the OECD guidelines, while selecting companies to participate, extreme care was taken to include all enterprises which are resident in Germany and which are active in biotechnology. Therefore, companies that are majority-owned from outside Germany but have a company office with R&D activities in Germany were also considered. In surveying the employee figures, number of companies and fields of activity, the survey included only the German locations of a company. If an enterprise had more than one location in Germany, only cumulated figures and data for the company as a whole were considered.

Concerning the clinical pipeline of the dedicated biotech companies, special care was taken to represent the core development activities in this survey – especially in the early clinical development, when a wide range of drug candidates are tested in different indications and formulations. For this reason the report does not include all R&D projects, but focuses on the number of active compounds the company has in phase I and II tests. With regard to counting newly founded companies, care was taken to compare the data of the current period under review with the data of the period under review of the previous year. A coherent picture can only emerge using this strategy, because a steady number of new firms continuously emerge throughout the year. Due to the time consuming official founding procedures, the majority of start-ups are only officially registered as new companies a year or more after their initial founding.

The deadline for completion of the survey was 31.12.2014, for counting the start-ups 31.3.2015. Participating companies can be viewed in the biotechnology database at the information portal biotechnologie.de. All data published herein is based on the results of the survey.