BioJapan 2023
Italian Pavilion

The Italian biotechnology industry confirms its strategic role in the Italian development of the sector. The anti-cyclicality component of our time series is due to the applications for human health; the strong dynamism of our time series also is due to the transition in industrial production processes and agricultural and livestock farming sector.
About two years after the worst period of pandemic, the update time series allow to measure more accurately both the economic and structural effects that the pandemic has had on the Italian biotechnology industry. The economic indicators showed that the sector not only held up, as noted in previous survey, but the updated time series even show a growth in term of biotech turnover and R&D investment during the year of the pandemic (2020). In 2020 the biotechnological sector was sustained, as was to be expected, by applications for human health, while in the following two years (2021- 2022) there was a strong increase in term of applications for industry, agriculture, and livestock. The pandemic thus does not appear to have interrupted the development of biotechnology applications including to human health, which now account for more than a quarter of the turnover generated by biotechnology activities.
Growth in term of the weight of total applications for the bioeconomy (industry and agriculture) also resume thanks to R&D investments in biotechnology, even if more gradually given the importance of research costs for the development of new drugs and diagnostics. There is only a temporary decline in the volume of biotech R&D investments in 2021, one year later than the decline of the number of companies, which collapsed in 2020. For both indicators, however, there is a recovery starting as early as 2021.
Finally, the process of territorial diffusion of the presence of companies active in biotechnology continues without discontinuity, even if the territorial concentration of the main economic variables persists.

The data collected in our survey and processed give the picture of a sector that has proven to be more resilient than shown by previous estimates, even recording a slight growth in turnover from biotechnological activities in 2020 equal to + 1.2%.
After the peak of the pandemic and its effects on the economic system, the biotechnology sector experienced a strong recovery in turnover growth in 2021 with its consolidation in 2022 exceeding 13.6 billion euros.
Furthermore, the gradually increasing weight on the total, acquired by companies Biotech R&D dedicated firms under Italian ownership is confirmed. In percentage terms, their share of turnover on the national total has more than doubled in the last decade and, in the same period, even tripled on the total turnover of companies specializing in biotechnological R&D.

Values in thousands of euros

＊ Provisional data The 2022 data are provisional.
The final data will be released upon completion of the 2023 survey.

If until 2020 the turnover of the biotechnology sector was supported mostly in particular applications for human health, in the last two years it is above all applications for the bioeconomy (industry and agriculture) that temporarily resumed expansion interrupted by the pandemic (with growth rates exceeding 30% for both areas of application in the two-year period 2021-2022), coming to represent over a quarter of Italian biotech turnover with an estimated share for 2021 more than 25% of the total and further growth trend in 2022. Therefore, the trend of applications for the Bioeconomy is also confi rmed, becoming increasingly relevant in the transition of our production systems.

nThe investment in intra-muros R&D of the total of Italian biotech companies recorded a decrease with a delay of one year, contracting in 2021 by just under 5%. In 2022, however, the projections seem to indicate a decisive recovery in the growth trend, bringing back the volume of intra-mural R&D investments.
Overall, investments in intra-muros R&D biotech remain particularly concentrated in the human health area for over 85%, but the dynamics of investments in other areas of application, especially for the green sector (agriculture and animal husbandry) shows a remarkable growth.

The number of biotechnology companies have had a slight contraction in 2020 (787 companies against 796 in the previous year) mainly due to the SME, generally focused on the development of new technologies and products. As reported in the previous report, these companies most suffered the impact of the “covid crisis”, especially the micro enterprises (less than 10 employees). The more structured companies, on the other hand, showed a slight reduction only in 2021, while for 2022 there is a growth for all size classes, for a total of 823 companies (provisional data).
Even the number of new innovative start-ups seems to have resumed the path of growth temporarily interrupted due to the pandemic crisis of 2020.

＊ Provisional data

The 2022 data are provisional. The final data will be released upon completion of the 2023 survey.

Although the activity of biotech companies remains largely concentrated in the area of human health (above 50%), between 2014 and 2021 there has been an expansion of the shares relating to companies developing biotech applications for the industry and the environment as well as for agriculture and animal husbandry which, since 2014, have shown great dynamism and the importance, therefore, of this sector for the bioeconomy.

At the territorial level, the diffusion processes affecting the South and Islands are confirmed (above all in terms of the share of the number of businesses - about 21% - but not only) and the North-East of the country (about 6% of turnover and 12% of investments in R&D) especially to the detriment of the central regions. However, the polarization remains very strong, above all for the economic variables: the first 4 regions (Lombardy, Latium, Tuscany and Piedmont) represent over 90% of the turnover, 80% of intra-mural R&D investments and 80% of employees, while it drops to 52% if we consider the number of businesses). The leading region remains Lombardy, followed by Lazio and Tuscany highly specialized in applications for health, while it is the northern regions in general that show a marked specialization in the applications of biotechnologies to industrial processes. In the south, which represents around 20% in terms of number of businesses, Campania (just under 8%) and Puglia (just over 4%) stand out.

Assobiotec, the Italian Association for the Development of Biotechnology, represents approximately 130 companies and science and technology parks operating in healthcare and bioeconomy which includes agriculture, industry and environment. The Association brings together a variety of enterprises and organisations, of different sizes and from different spheres of operation, all of which are strongly united by a propensity for innovation and by their use of biotechnology – a strategic stimulus for development in every industrial field, offering concrete responses to increasingly pressing needs in terms of public health, environmental conservation, food and agriculture.
Established in 1986 as a part of Federchimica, Assobiotec is also a founding member of EuropaBio, the European Association for Bioindustries, and of the ICBA, the International Council of Biotechnology Associations.