The medical equipment and pharmaceutical industry ranks the top three in terms of R&D expenditure of the world's top 2500 enterprises

Not long ago, the European Union released the EU Industrial Research and Development Scorecard 2020, which shows that EU enterprises' investment in scientific research has been increasing for ten consecutive years.The scoreboard analyzed the 2,500 companies with the largest R&D spending globally, which increased their R&D spending by 8.9 percent in 2019, the same increase as in 2018.

In terms of countries, the EU has 421 enterprises and invested 189 billion euros in research and development, an increase of 5.6% compared to 2018 and 4.7% higher than in 2018. The automobile, ICT and healthcare sectors were the main drivers of the growth.The United States has 775 companies and invested 348 billion euros in scientific research, up 10.8 percent from 2018;China has 536 enterprises and invested 119 billion euros in scientific research, a 21 percent increase compared to 2018.According to the scoreboard, EU companies in the ICT and health sectors have lagged behind their US and Chinese counterparts in terms of growth in R&D investment, but they have a clear advantage over China in green innovative technologies.

The report also shows that global science and technology spending is highly concentrated in three regions, Europe, North America and East Asia, accounting for 94.86% of total R&D.Among them, Europe includes the European Union and the United Kingdom, North America is the United States and Canada and the United States, and East Asia is China (including Taiwan), Japan and South Korea.

In addition, what is the global focus on research and development of industrial technology?As can be seen from the report, ICT+ medical devices, pharmaceuticals and automobiles are highly concentrated in the three major industries. In 2019, the highest expenditure is on ICT products, which is 208.5 billion euros, including semiconductors, communication equipment, computer hardware, electronic and electrical product parts and so on.The second highest expenditure is on health, 185.6 billion euros, which includes biopharmaceuticals, medical devices, pharmaceuticals and so on.

In contrast, China's proportion of medical technology research and development is significantly lower than Europe and the United States, and also lower than Japan.The United States accounted for 26.4 percent, the European Union 19.2 percent, Japan 12.5 percent and China 5.5 percent.As the top of global medical technology is in the hands of Europe and the United States, the cost of high-end medical devices and drugs cannot be reduced for a long time. Therefore, China must accelerate localization and promote the technological development of Chinese enterprises to reduce the cost.