Cytiva and Longitude (a Financial Times company) reveal five major challenges for the industry in new Global Biopharma Resilience Index

Global life sciences leader Cytiva, along with the Financial Times' research arm Longitude, have compiled a global index, ranking the ability of the biopharma industry to respond to five major challenges; in supply chain, talent, research and development, manufacturing, and government policy and regulation.

Respondents answered questions on a scale of 1 to 10 in each of the five areas. The average of all responses resulted in the rating of each country's biopharma capabilities as well as the strength of the global industry. With an overall index score of 6.6 out of 10, the industry looks vulnerable – and has scope to improve across a number of critical areas. In the overall index, the United States ranks first, with a 7.12 score. Switzerland and the UK follow closely.

Russia, China and India are leading in the lower-middle income and upper-middle-income economy countries1, despite having large populations and lower GNI per capita than some of the other countries in this group. However, the index also highlights a clear divide between high-income vs upper-middle-income and lower-middle-income economies. The upper-middle-income and lower-middle-income economies tend to score lower on the index: this indicates that they have less resilient biopharma industries, which creates a significant risk in terms of global access to vital medications.

Emmanuel Ligner, President and CEO, Cytiva, says: "As a partner to global biopharma companies, we wanted to offer this overview of where the industry is performing well, and where there are some pain points.  The data is built by listening to customers and key players, and gives us insight into major concerns. With this data, we'll have even more fruitful conversations and be better prepared to work with customers and stakeholders to address industry-wide challenges."

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, founder and chairperson of Biocon, says: "Biopharma has a huge role to play in the future of medicine, and many of the medicines that we are developing now will be game-changing. But developing blockbuster drugs shouldn't be about making a billion dollars – it should be about serving a billion patients. That's when we will have global equity in healthcare."

The index was built from 1,165 survey respondents across 20 countries (95% pharma and biopharma executives and 5% healthcare policymakers), in addition to in-depth interviews with eight experts from biopharma and healthcare policymaking.

About Cytiva

Cytiva is a global life sciences leader with more than 7,000 associates across 40 countries dedicated to advancing and accelerating therapeutics. As a trusted partner to customers that range in scale and scope, Cytiva brings speed, efficiency and capacity to research and manufacturing workflows, enabling the development, manufacture and delivery of transformative medicines to patients.

1 Using the World Bank country classifications, based on gross national income per capita