Big pharma’s biggest spenders revealed

The world’s largest drug developers invested a combined $183bn on R&D, M&A and licensing deals in 2021. While this is a huge sum, it also represents a fairly sizeable dip versus the previous two years.

A jump in spending on in-house development last year – boosted by Covid-related R&D bills – failed to offset a pullback in deal-making. Signs are growing that 2022 could be another down year for these sector giants, with much pandemic-related clinical work ending and a muted start to the year for big pharma’s business development teams.