Regions
MAIN/REGIONS
regions/
Regions
  1. Americas
  2. Asia & Oceania
  3. Europe
  4. Middle East & Africa
  1. Solutions
  2. Products
  3. Insights
  4. About
  5. Careers
  6. Contact Us
MAIN/search
MAIN/Solutions
Solutions/
SOLUTIONS
  • Research & Development
  • Real World Evidence
  • Commercialization
  • Safety & Regulatory Compliance
  • Technologies
LIFE SCIENCE SEGMENTS
HEALTHCARE SEGMENTS
THERAPEUTIC AREAS

Impacting People's Lives

"We strive to help improve outcomes and create a healthier, more sustainable world for people everywhere.

LEARN MORE
Harness the power to transform clinical development

Reimagine clinical development by intelligently connecting data, technology, and analytics to optimize your trials. The result? Faster decision making and reduced risk so you can deliver life-changing therapies faster.

Research & Development Overview
Research & Development Quick Links
Real World Evidence. Real Confidence. Real Results.

Generate and disseminate evidence that answers crucial clinical, regulatory and commercial questions, enabling you to drive smarter decisions and meet your stakeholder needs with confidence.

REAL WORLD EVIDENCE OVERVIEW
Real World Evidence Quick Links
See markets more clearly. Opportunities more often.

Elevate commercial models with precision and speed using AI-driven analytics and technology that illuminate hidden insights in data.

COMMERCIALIZATION OVERVIEW
Commercialization Quick Links
Service driven. Tech-enabled. Integrated compliance.

Orchestrate your success across the complete compliance lifecycle with best-in-class services and solutions for safety, regulatory, quality and medical information.

COMPLIANCE OVERVIEW
Safety & Regulatory Compliance Quick Links
Intelligence that transforms life sciences end-to-end.

When your destination is a healthier world, making intelligent connections between data, technology, and services is your roadmap.

TECHNOLOGIES OVERVIEW
Technology Quick Links
MAIN/Products
Products/
CLINICAL PRODUCTS
COMMERCIAL PRODUCTS
COMPLIANCE, SAFETY, REG PRODUCTS
REAL WORLD PRODUCTS

CASE STUDY

"Data in a Day

LEARN MORE
MAIN/Insights
Insights/
BLOGS, WHITE PAPERS & CASE STUDIES

Explore our library of insights, thought leadership, and the latest topics & trends in healthcare.

DISCOVER INSIGHTS
THE IQVIA INSTITUTE

An in-depth exploration of the global healthcare ecosystem with timely research, insightful analysis, and scientific expertise.

SEE LATEST REPORTS

INSTITUTE REPORT

"Global Trends in R&D 2024

READ MORE

EMEA Insights

"IQVIA thought leadership with a focus on EMEA.

Learn more

WHITE PAPER

"DCTs Deliver Big ROI

LEARN MORE

WHITE PAPER

"Capturing value at scale: The $4 billion RWE imperative

LEARN MORE
MAIN/About
About/
FEATURED INNOVATIONS
  • IQVIA Connected Intelligence™
  • IQVIA Healthcare-grade AI™
  • Human Data Science Cloud
  • IQVIA Innovation Hub
  • Decentralized Trials
  • Patient Experience powered by Apple
WHO WE ARE
NEWS & RESOURCES

INVESTOR RELATIONS

"Visit our investor relations site for more information.

LEARN MORE
Unlock your potential to drive healthcare forward

By making intelligent connections between your needs, our capabilities, and the healthcare ecosystem, we can help you be more agile, accelerate results, and improve patient outcomes.

LEARN MORE
IQVIA AI is Healthcare-grade AI

Building on a rich history of developing AI for healthcare, IQVIA AI connects the right data, technology, and expertise to address the unique needs of healthcare. It's what we call Healthcare-grade AI.

LEARN MORE
Your healthcare data deserves more than just a cloud.

The IQVIA Human Data Science Cloud is our unique capability designed to enable healthcare-grade analytics, tools, and data management solutions to deliver fit-for-purpose global data at scale.

LEARN MORE
Innovations make an impact when bold ideas meet powerful partnerships

The IQVIA Innovation Hub connects start-ups with the extensive IQVIA network of assets, resources, clients, and partners. Together, we can help lead the future of healthcare with the extensive IQVIA network of assets, resources, clients, and partners.

LEARN MORE
Proven, faster DCT solutions

IQVIA Decentralized Trials deliver purpose-built clinical services and technologies that engage the right patients wherever they are. Our hybrid and fully virtual solutions have been used more than any others.

LEARN MORE
IQVIA Patient Experience Solutions powered by Apple

Empowering patients to personalize their healthcare and connecting them to caregivers has the potential to change the care delivery paradigm. IQVIA and Apple are collaborating to bring this exciting future of personalized care directly to devices patients already have and use.

LEARN MORE
MAIN/Careers
Careers/
WORKING AT IQVIA

Our mission is to accelerate innovation for a healthier world. Together, we can solve customer challenges and improve patient lives.

LEARN MORE
LIFE AT IQVIA

Careers, culture and everything in between. Find out what’s going on right here, right now.

LEARN MORE

WE’RE HIRING

"Improving human health requires brave thinkers who are willing to explore new ideas and build on successes. Unleash your potential with us.

SEARCH JOBS
MAIN/Contact Us
Contact Us/
Institute Report
Global Trends in R&D 2022
Overview through 2021
Feb 10, 2022
To download files, please accept Functional Cookies. These cookies provide enhanced functionality for a better user experience.

Summary

As the global COVID-19 pandemic enters its third year, the life sciences innovation system is setting new records in the level of investment, activity, and scientific progress, in addition to the number and range of new medicines reaching patients around the world. Beyond the ground-breaking contributions to COVID-19 in the form of vaccines and therapeutics, this sector has also succeeded in adapting and re-focusing to a remarkable extent, overcoming the many operational and organizational challenges facing those who are leading biopharmaceutical innovation.

This report - Global Trends in R&D: Overview through 2021 – assesses the trends in new drug approvals and launches, overall pipeline activity in terms of actively researched medicines, and the number of initiated clinical trials. It also profiles the state of R&D funding and the activity of companies of different types, and the results of research are compared to the input effort in a Clinical Development Productivity Index. The notable acceleration and adaptability of the innovation ecosystem is examined in terms of several accelerators of the innovation cycle, including dramatic reductions in so-called white space within clinical development timelines that have been achieved for COVID-19 vaccines and other medicines and suggests the kinds of optimization to expect in the future.

Key Findings

NEW DRUG APPROVALS AND LAUNCHES
  • A record 84 novel active substances (NASs) were initially launched globally in 2021, double the number of five years ago. This brings the total number of launches over the past 20 years to a total of 883.
  • The U.S. remains the country with the earliest and highest number of launches and among the 72 NASs launched in 2021, a record 44 (over 60%) were characterized by the FDA as first-in-class, and more than half (40) carried an orphan drug designation indicating their use for patients with rare diseases.
R&D PIPELINE
  • The total number of products that are in active development in human trials globally exceeds 6,000, up 68% over the 2016 level, as life sciences companies continue to invest and advance innovative therapeutics and vaccines across a wide range of disease areas, despite the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Precision medicine increasingly dominates in oncology where targeted therapies account for almost all of research, and over 40% of the pipeline is for rare cancers where next-generation biotherapeutics — including cell and gene therapies – are increasingly being deployed.
CLINICAL TRIAL ACTIVITY
  • Overall clinical trial activity has been sustained through the pandemic as the industry has adapted to the disruption and developed new approaches to enable research to continue. In 2021, 5,500 new planned clinical trial starts were reported, up 14% over 2020 and 19% higher than 2019.
  • The aggregate number of study participants in intended new trials exceeded 2 million in 2021 for the first time, double the level seen prior to the trials for both COVID-19 and several very large Ebola virus vaccine trials.
CLINICAL DEVELOPMENT PRODUCTIVITY
  • The composite success rate across all development phases and therapy areas declined to 5.0% in 2021, which can be attributed to an appetite for increased scientific risk in clinical development programs as the bar for efficacy and safety rises, as well as increased pauses in product development due to the pandemic.
  • Across disease areas, probability of success varies considerably, and 2021’s composite success rate fell below the 10-year trend in all areas except for vaccines and cardiovascular.
R&D FUNDING
  • Venture capital deal activity and investment flows in the U.S. accelerated in the past two years as interest in life sciences intensified with more than 2,000 deals and $47 billion of deal value occurring in 2021. In addition, the 15 largest pharmaceutical companies invested a record $133 billion in 2021 in R&D expenditure, an increase of 44% since 2016.
  • Life sciences deal transactions – including licensing, collaborative R&D arrangements, and acquisitions – remained at just under 5,000 deals in total in 2021, including over 500 related to COVID-19.
EMERGING BIOPHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES’ CONTRIBUTION TO INNOVATION
  • Emerging biopharma companies (EBPs) – those with an estimated expenditure on R&D of less than $200 million and less than $500 million in revenue annually – are responsible for a record 65% of the molecules in the R&D pipeline, up from less than 50% in 2016 and one-third in 2001.
  • EBPs originated – that is, filed the original product patent – for half of the NASs launched in the U.S. in 2021.
ACCELERATORS OF INNOVATION CYCLES
  • In addition to actions taken directly in support of COVID-19 vaccine and therapeutic development, intensified efforts are being taken by all stakeholders to accelerate innovation cycles and bring scientific breakthroughs to patients faster. The median time from first patent filing to launch in the U.S. has fallen to its lowest level and in the past two years included 21 drugs that were launched less than five years into their patent terms.
  • Most new drugs (72%) received some form of expedited review by FDA including one in four receiving an accelerated approval or an Emergency Use Authorization.

Other Findings

Global Trends in R and D Exhibit 2
  • The record number of NAS launches in 2021 included eight COVID-19 vaccines or therapeutics and excluding those launches each of the past two years still exceed any year in history for new launches.
  • Oncology, neurology and infectious diseases have all had a rising share of new launches in the past five years with 197 of the 330 launches (60%), compared to 110 of 221 (49%) from 2012 to 2016.
  • The total 169 oncology launches in the past decade include some of the most groundbreaking new treatments in immuno-oncology as well as next- generation biotherapeutics, and many treatments for rare cancers.
  • The research and development pipeline plateaued in 2021 with 6,085 products in active development from Phase I to regulatory submission, growing less than 1% from 2020.
  • This slowing growth in 2021 is likely due to slowing activity from prolonged uncertainty as a result of impacts of new variants on activity during the ongoing pandemic.
  • Oncology remains the focus of the pipeline, comprising 37% or 2,226 products.
  • Currently, more than 3,200 companies and more than 200 academic or research groups around the world are involved in the R&D pipeline.
  • The U.S. share of the global R&D pipeline has remained relatively stable, at above 40% over the past 15 years.
  • Europe’s share has declined from 31% to 25% over the past 15 years, while the absolute number of active programs grew by 32% — from 1,492 to 1,966.
  • The composite success rate for the pipeline fell to a 10-year low in 2021, driven by drops in Phase I, II and III success, while slightly offset by an increase in regulatory submission success rates, though still not a return to pre-pandemic levels.
  • Phase III success rates saw the greatest drop in 2021, declining to 48%, which is 19% below the 10-year pre-pandemic average.
  • Some of this increase in attrition may be due to increasingly risky or aspirational research — both in the mechanism of action with increasing next-generation and first-in-class pipeline penetration.
  • COVID-19 vaccine pivotal trial timelines were reduced by 70%, with an estimated 26 months of whitespace and operational time savings compared to earlier vaccine trials.
  • These time savings were enabled by regulatory and government investment, which de-risked critical decision-making, innovation, and resourcing.
  • Whitespace efficiencies were driven by urgency, execution-partner alignment, and leader engagement, leading to at least two months of savings from accelerated contracting and trial planning alone.

Report Charts

Learn more about this report by downloading all the exhibits.

Download

Blog

IQVIA Institute Research Highlights 2022

The Quest for Evidence-Based Research in Healthcare Decision-making.

learn more
Event
IQVIA Life Sciences Innovation Forum
Setting Priorities for Life Sciences Companies to Accelerate Biomedical Innovation and Health System Sustainability
Learn more

Related solutions

Industry Segments

See how we partner with organizations across the healthcare ecosystem, from emerging biotechnology and large pharmaceutical, to medical technology, consumer health, and more, to drive human health forward.

Clinical Research & Development Solutions

Explore our end-to-end, full service clinical development capabilities including Therapeutics expertise, Development Planning, Phase I early clinical development, Phase IIb/III and Phase IV Trials, Regulatory Submission and Post-Launch Studies.

You may also be interested in

Institute Report
Global Trends in R&D 2024: Activity, productivity, and enablers
Institute Report
Global Oncology Trends 2023
Video
Global Trends in R&D 2023
Institute Report
Global Trends in R&D 2023
Institute Report
Emerging Biopharma’s Contribution to Innovation
Blog
Quantifying the Impact of R&D Trends on Trial Productivity
Prev
Next
Contact Us