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Life Sciences Industry Facts and Figures

The total Life Sciences exports in 2010 valued €56.8 billion, accounting for over 63% of total exports, or 35.5% of the GDP. That makes Ireland one of the largest next exporter of pharmaceutical products in the world. Ireland has a strong international reputation in the life sciences industry and we have seen a continued growth in this area due to our ability to attract direct foreign investment from the top companies in this industry.

Ireland currently home to 15 of the top 20 medical technology companies in the world and nine of the top ten global pharmaceutical companies are located in Ireland. Because of the intense investment in the Life Sciences Industry and the success in creating the knowledge economy to attract foreign investment, in Ireland are currently produced seven out of ten pharmaceutical blockbusters.

The results of that are that the Life Sciences sector employs over 52,000 people spread in 350 enterprises. Studies state that ‘for every 100 jobs created in Life Sciences manufacturing, an additional 137 supporting services jobs are created in the pharmaceuticals sector and an estimated 62 jobs in the medical devices sector.’

Globally the sector has been expanding by 7% per annum since the turn of the decade. By comparison exports of Life Sciences products from Ireland have more than doubled in the same time frame and now account for 9% of global sales. Ireland’s own life science industry has been growing at a rate of 6.3% since the beginning of the decade. Pharmaceuticals alone are providing a large percentage of the exports from Ireland. Even with the slight decrease in overall exports in the last 2 years, we can still see that pharmaceuticals are on the rise despite the current economic climate.

To continually increase our global share in this industry, companies need to capture new opportunities and need to be more than innovative to achieve this. Companies need to use “the many competitive levers of price, cost, quality, speed and flexibility” to gain more of a market share in the global industry. Since Ireland has strategically placed itself on the global market for life science exports, and has also received more direct foreign investment in the last few years than any other European country, we have the potential to keep increasing our exports as long as we retain our reputation and continue to receive investment into the country.