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We love to share good news from the sector. On this occasion, we share the data recently published by farmaindustria that show not only the level of our scientific community in Spain, but also its international recognition.
Specifically, in 2022 it reached 26,818 million euros in turnover, placing medicines as the third product with the highest exports in our country, only behind the automotive and fuel sectors.
Clearly, this situation has been influenced by the impact of the vaccines for COVID, but it also reflects the firm commitment of the pharmaceutical companies operating in our country to strengthen the industrial fabric, a trend that has been consolidated according to the evolution of recent years and which reinforces the forecast to continue making investments.
The sector in numbers
The first study on the industrial implementation of the pharmaceutical sector shows that our country has 103 factories producing medicines for human use, eleven of which specialize in biologics.
If the active ingredient (46) and veterinary use (24) factories are added, the total is 173, belonging to 122 different business groups.
They generate 183,000 jobs, including direct, indirect and induced employment; they produce 16,000 million euros (75% of which is exported) and are at the forefront of competitiveness and environmental sustainability.
Another important variable is the high level of internationalization of Spanish plants, which, according to data from the INE and the Secretary of State for Foreign Trade, would exceed 75% of national production.
The other major impact of the sector’s plants is related to employment, both in terms of their effect on other sectors, as well as the quality of employment. The report details that industrial drug manufacturing plants in Spain directly employ 36,338 people, with a cumulative annual growth of 4.2% since 2019. In addition, adding the indirect and induced jobs generated by this industry due to its large number of suppliers and outsourced services, pharmaceutical plants contribute to a total of 183,506 jobs in Spain.
In addition to these historical figures for the export of medicines and vaccines, it should be added that they are manufactured in a sustainable manner, with high standards in terms of environmental footprint and optimized energy use, and at the forefront of the so-called circular economy.
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