As the chart below indicates, the U.S. accounted for 50 percent of global pharmaceutical R&D over much of the
past two decades.
Figure 4: Share of total pharma R&D spending of key countries, 1990-2008
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Percent
U.S. Japan U.K. Germany France Switzerland
1990 1995 2000 2005 2006 2007 2008
Sources: National trade associations; U.K. Ministerial Industry Strategy Group/Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry report (2009).
The U.S. also leads in R&D investment in the medical devices. In the 1990s, it directed an average of 8.3 percent
of its share of sales into R&D.61 In the earlier part of the following decade, R&D expenditures comprised 10 to
13 percent of total sales, compared to about 8 percent in both the EU and Japan.62