Global biotech sector posted $3.7 billion profit in 2009
Biotech companies return to profitability Biotechnology companies worldwide turned a profit last year for the first time since at least 1985 due to reduced spending on research and increased revenue. Profit in the industry was $3.7 billion, compared with a loss of $1.8 billion in 2008, according to a report Wednesday on biotechnology in the United States, Europe, Canada and Australia by London-based Ernst & Young Global. The company has compiled its report annually for 24 years. Research and development spending in the U.S. fell 13 percent last year, with about two-thirds of companies cutting those expenses as capital for some grew scarcer, said Glen Giovannetti, leader of Ernst & Young's global biotech unit. Sixty percent of European firms reduced research costs. At the same time, overall sales increased in the industry, driven primarily by a small number of large companies with well-performing existing products, he said. "What we don't know is ...