For the 19th consecutive year, France Biotech has published its Panorama France Healthtech, which was unveiled at the Paris Santé Campus on February 15, 2022. This edition is particularly optimistic in so far as concerns the future of the sector, “a very good trend to be confirmed over the next few years”, as summarized by the President of France Biotech, Franck Mouthon.
The French healthtech sector includes some 2,000 companies (biotech, medtech, e-health, etc.). 427 of them took part in the study.
French healthcare startups raised a record amount of €2.3 billion in 2021, an increase of nearly 50% compared to 2020.
“These good results are the result of the gradual structuring of the industry, the attractiveness of the sector given the health crisis and the public policies in support of healthcare innovation over recent years. In all healthtech technological families France now has access to a wide range of assets that are designed to ensure that patients are treated as quickly as possible and that these successes are deployed internationally”, said Franck Mouthon, President of France Biotech.
These companies account for over 10,000 direct jobs. 79% of them have hired personnel in 2021. In 2022, 2,000 further recruitments are planned, mainly in R&D and production. R&D is also their largest expenditure item (€1.1 billion invested in R&D in 2020, a 20% increase compared to 2019).
Public funding has a key role to play in the development of the sector. Bpifrance has offered unprecedented financial support of €1.2 billion, i.e. 4 times more than in 2020. The impact of the 2030 Health Innovation Plan is already being felt, with its €7.2 billion in investment announced in June 2021 by President Emmanuel Macron. The Tibi fund, an investment program set up in 2019 to finance tech startups, is also bearing fruit.
Public research players, representing 53% of partnerships, are the main partners of French HealthTechs. In addition, Technology Transfer Organizations (TTOs) have shares, on average, in 27% of the startups that result from public research.
It should also be noted that one third of partnerships are international. One in five companies has at least one subsidiary abroad, this figure increases to in two for companies that are over 10 years old. The markets that are targeted are mainly the United States, Europe and Asia, and the leading private foreign investors are American and British.
However, two thirds of the companies surveyed would like to see more support from the public authorities in the area of intellectual property, in order to better define their business model, benefit from increased understanding of the regulatory framework and facilitate the possible reimbursement of their solutions.