Enterprises spent $38.8M on research and development, says country’s statistical authority
The number of enterprises carrying out activities in biotechnology reached 363 in 2019, the country’s statistical authority announced Friday.
Research and development (R&D) expenditures of the enterprises in 2019 rose to around 324.5 million Turkish liras ($57.13 million), which was nearly 276 million Turkish liras ($57.2 million) in the previous year, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat).
The average US dollar / Turkish lira exchange rate was 5.68 in 2019 and 4.82 in 2018.
According to TurkStat, human health ranked first among the biotechnology applications. “37.2% of 363 enterprises engaged in biotechnology used biotechnology for human health, while 33.6% of them for agricultural biotechnology and 26.7% of them for environment in 2019,” it said.
In the last year, the most used technique was DNA/RNA with 214 enterprises. This was followed by “process biotechnology techniques” and “cell and tissue culture and engineering” both were used by 119 enterprises and “proteins and other molecules” used by 118 enterprises.
Noting that the number of biotechnology employees was 1,821 in 2019, TurkStat said: “Regarding educational level of these employees, 18% of them were doctoral or equivalent, 24.2% of them were master’s or equivalent, 39.5% of them were bachelor’s or equivalent.”
According to 363 enterprises, the most vital barrier to biotechnology R&D activities was “access to capital” with 60.3%, followed by “access to skilled human resources” with 51%.