Commission warns of a widening EU biotech gap

The European Commission has urged the European Parliament to confront Europe’s weakening position in global biotechnology following the publication of the EU Biotech Act. “We have, unfortunately, a competitiveness gap, and that gap is widening,” said Rainer Becker, director for medical products and innovation at the Commission’s directorate focused on health and food safety.

Addressing a hearing of the Parliament’s research and industry committee on January 15, Becker said that China’s rapid rise in biotechnology illustrates how quickly the global landscape is shifting. Over the past decade, its share of global clinical trials has surged from less than 10% to nearly 30%. 

By contrast, Europe’s share of international clinical research has fallen from around 20% to roughly 10%. A similar picture emerges when comparing Europe with the US, which invests more than nine times as much as the EU in biotech start-ups.

This investment gap is also reflected in capital markets. Over the past six years, 67 highly promising biotech start-ups from Europe have gone public. Of those, 66 chose to list on the US Nasdaq rather than on European exchanges, Becker said.

While Europe has an excellent scientific base, particularly in health biotech, it has been less successful in translating that excellence into market success. “We are facing an immediate urgency to act in the sector,” he said, to ensure that biotech innovators remain in the EU and scale up their technologies.

This sense of urgency was one motivation for bringing forward publication of the European Biotech Act, intended to establish a more forward-looking regulatory environment for the sector in Europe. The first part of the act, with a focus on health biotechnology, was released early on November 16. The second part, concentrating on industrial policy, is expected in the third quarter of 2026.

But the discussion appeared to attract little interest from committee members, with the parliamentary chamber nearly empty. 

“The fact that we are only eight or ten people together in this room [shows] that we need to broaden communication in order to show just how important [this issue] is,” said Morten Løkkegaard of the Renew Europe Group.