Swiss Biotech Report 2006

32APPENDIX: FACTS AND FIGURESSwitzerland has a very attractive biotech settingwith many companies actively striving to becomeglobal playerMarkus Blaser, Ernst &YoungBy the end of 2005, the Swiss biotech industry consistedof 229* companies in total, whereof 138 biotechcompanies (consisting of 84 core biotech companiesand 54 extended core biotech companies) and 91biotech suppliers. Regarding the number of core biotechcompanies, Switzerland kept its rank as no. 6in Europe and no. 10 worldwide since 1998. Hence,compared with the size of its population, Switzerlandhas the highest biotech density worldwide. Almosthalf of all Swiss biotech companies have been foundedbefore 1995. There has been a steady flow ofnew biotech foundations ever since the early nineties,not only in times when the IPO window was open,but also throughout the years. This underlines thatthe biotech industry has developed into a quite matureindustry in Switzerland. In fact, by the end of 2005,the industry employed more than 14’400 people, markinga steady increase in workforce.The financial community has rewarded the generallyhigh quality of the Swiss biotech industry over thepast years by considerably and constantly investinginto companies with promising projects under way.Even in the harsh time of the post-dotcom area, significantamounts of venture capital flowed into Swissbiotech companies (2001: CHF 106 million, 2002: CHF132 million, 2003: CHF 125 million, 2004: CHF 194million, 2005: CHF 295 million [incl. CHF 118 millionpre-IPO financings raised by Speedel]).Regarding its company size the Swiss biotech industrycan be split up into three main categories: the 9public companies with globally active and well-knownbiotech leaders such as Serono and Actelion andabout 20 medium-sized companies with 50 to 100employees (many of those companies more or lessready for IPO). All remaining companies are stillrather small with less than 50 employees.Geographically the majority of Swiss biotech companiesare located in one of the three hotbeds in the ArcLémanique area or in the regions of Basel or Zurich.In all three areas world-class universities and severalbiotech incubators are located. For many decades,the Swiss industry had a strong position in pharmaceuticalsand chemicals. Consequently 86 per cent ofthe 138 Swiss biotech companies are active in thefield of red biotech (human & animal health) and only8 per cent in white biotech (environmental & industry)and 6 per cent in green biotech (agro & nutrition).More than 50 per cent of the Swiss biotech companiesare active in Therapeutics, whereas one-fifth are involvedin Genomics, Proteomics and Enabling Technologies.* ELISCOs, meaning Entrepreneurial Life Sciences Companies.These are companies that use modern biological techniques todevelop products or services to serve the needs of human healthcareor animal health, agricultural productivity, food processing,renewable resources or environmental affairs. Not included in thesefigures are pharmaceutical or agribusiness companies with secondaryactivities in biotech (e.g. Novartis, Roche, Syngenta, etc.),Swiss subsidiaries of foreign biotech companies and consultingcompanies.