In cooperation with: BIO Deutschland – German Biotech Industry Organisation European Biotechnology Network
Turnover at an all-time high
Compared to 2020, the sales of the 753 dedicated biotech companies have virtually exploded in 2021, reaching the incredible sum of € 26.5bn - admittedly, the enormous growth rate of almost 400% is primarily attributable to BioNTech’s vaccine sales. But even if the sales of the Mainz-based company are excluded, the result is a remarkable sum of € 7.5bn. This represents growth of more than 20% compared to 2020 ( € 6.2bn excluding BioNTech revenue) - an increase unmatched in the years before the pandemic. This shows that many German biotech companies have now reached a high level of maturity, which has been reflected accordingly.
As in 2020, the immense growth is attributable in particular to sales generated with vaccines as well as diagnostics. The healthcare sector alone was able to
generate sales of € 24.2bn. Excluding BioNTech sales, this still amounted to € 5.2bn (+18%; 2020: € 4.4bn excluding BioNTech). However, non-specific biotech services (€1.85bn; +32%) and companies focusing on industrial biotechnology (€ 399 m, 11%) also recorded a significant increase in sales.
By the end of 2021, a total of 753 German biotech companies were counted (2020: 736). Half (52%) focus their activities on the healthcare sector, either developing new therapeutics, diagnostics or vaccines or working on technology platforms relevant for this. About a third (30%) of the companies provide biotechnological services and just over 10% are involved in industrial biotechnology. Only a small proportion (2%) of German biotech companies are active in agricultural biotechnology and 5% focus on bioinformatics.
Once again high spending on research and development
Also in 2021, successes in developing new vaccines and diagnostics to combat the COVID 19 pandemic had a major impact on research and development (R&D) spending. After surpassing the two billion mark for the first time in 2020, research spending in 2021 was already reaching for the three billion mark€ 2.83bn was invested in R&D, an increase of 32.4% compared to 2020.
BioNTech invested just under one billion in research and development in 2021. But even here, if you exclude the research expenditures of the Mainz-based company, there is still a very significant increase of 26% compared to 2020. €1.88bn would then be compared with €1.49bn.
Name
Address/P.O. Box
BRAIN Biotech AG
Darmstädter Str. 34–36
64673 Zwingenberg
Hesse
+49-6251-9331-0
+49-6251-9331-11
public@brain-biotech.com
www.brain-biotech.com
Creating a #BiobasedFuture
We are one of Europe’s leading companies in the field of industrial (white) biotechnology. We identify previously untapped efficient enzymes, microbial producer organisms, and natural substances from biological systems for industrial applications. We optimize production strains and enable efficient bioprocesses.
Number of Employees
Founded (year)
Type
Areas of Activity
~ 320 (BRAIN Group)
1993
S1, S2, L1, L2
Discovery, development and optimization of enzymes, microbial strains and natural bioactive substances for applications in the food, diagnostics, pharma and chemical industry as well as for environmental issues.
l Enzymes from discovery to production for diverse industrial applications
l Microorganisms as producer strains, for precious metal extraction, for waste stream transformation, as probiotics and much more
l Bioactive substances, e.g. as ingredients for food, animal feed, skin care
Our innovative solutions are successfully applied in the feed, food, diagnostics, pharma, and chemical industries, many of them serving to make products and processes more sustainable.
Products and solutions
Within the BRAIN Group we use synergies for R&D as well as for specialized production of functional biomass, enzymes, or bioactives. We offer products and solutions from small-scale to large-scale approaches.
› Enzymes: Discovery, analysis, optimization, sampling, formulation, and production in a variety of hosts.
› Microorganisms: Identification; strain development (non-GMO and GMO); supply of functional biomass to optimize industrial production processes.
External › Collaborations
Request for ›
Further Collaborations
Collaborations with global players as well as with renowned universities.
Looking for partners to develop novel applications in industrial biotech, agriculture, diagnostics and therapeutics leveraging our independent CRISPR/Cas genome editing platform
› Bioactives and performance biologicals: Discovery (high-throughput isolation; extraction and purification of natural products from variable biological resources); structure elucidation and characterization; activity- and sequence-based screenings incl. biochemical and human cell-based assays; production.
R&D Services
Genome Editing tools and services
We use a proprietary CRISPR/Cas genome editing platform with a toolbox of several nucleases to perform custom genome editing services (“We CRISPR for you”) in a variety of applications. These genome editing tools have been identified and developed in-house, and are independent of common nucleases like e.g. Cas9 or Cas12a. We also provide and license these tools to our partners.
Enzymes optimization and search for new Enzymes
If a particular enzyme product is not found in the BRAIN Group’s enzyme portfolio, our metagenome libraries are the basis for our sequence- or activity-based search for new enzyme product candidates. We further optimize enzymes already used by our customers so that complex process and application requirements can be met even better.
Process development and optimiziation
We develop bioprocesses at lab-scale and to scale-up (200L) for process validation and sample generation. Our engineers within the BRAIN Group are experts for the tech and process transfer to enable a production at an industrial scale (up to 10,000L).
Applied technologies
› Protein engineering
› Eucaryotic cell expertise
› Natural compound libraries
› Genome editing / independent BRAIN Cas nucleases
› BRAIN BioArchive with access to nature‘s biodiversity
› Metagenome technologies
› Next generation sequencing
› Precision fermentation & bio-processing
› Applied bioinformatics
› 3D modelling
› Analytics