R&D 2005

摘要

The 2005 edition of the tr R&D scorecard shows that worldwide corporate spending is picking up, but that the gains are unevenly distributed. The biggest advances are in the life sciences, which also happen to be among the most research-intensive industries: 2004 R&D spending among the biotech companies on the list shot up by an average of 69 percent over the previous year. The gain at pharmaceutical companies was less spectacular but still a strong 22 percent. IT companies, on the other hand, have as a group barely increased their R&D outlays; telecommunications and computer hardware companies, on average, spent less than in 2005. Spending in telecom remains particularly troubled, with several leading companies, including Motorola, Ericsson, and NTT, reporting double-digit decreases. In IT, however, software remains an exception; Microsoft paced the sector to a 20 percent increase in research spending in 2004. The scorecard ranks companies by the Technology Review Inno- vation Index, which takes into account R&D spending levels, spending increases, and R&D as a proportion of sales; five of the top 10 companies according to this metric are in life sciences.