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A number of U.S. universities have vacated the latest top 10 list even as R&D spending grew nationwide. (yalax/Getty Images)
What are medical breakthroughs without diligent research? That’s a rhetorical question, given the answer is, obviously, nothing at all.
But in the global medical research ecosystem, a number of institutions stand above the rest as significant contributors. That’s the impetus for our collection of the world’s top 10 R&D institutions. In this report, we give you a snapshot of the who’s who of research. And, after a year off, the list has a number of notable changes.
But before launching into which institutes made the cut, a refresher on how this list is compiled. Nature produces a share score based on institutions’ output in 82 natural science journals. It’s calculated using the proportion of authors from an institution on a given article and the number of affiliated institutions per article. Nature notes that the data informing the scores are based on a “relatively small proportion” of total papers and that the list doesn’t take into account the size of a country or institution.
One of the most notable differences from our 2020 report is the ascension of Chinese institutions, which mirrors the rise of Chinese biotechs. When this special report was last written, only one Chinese institution—the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)—made the list. That’s ballooned to four in this special, and CAS jumped from the No. 3 spot to the first.
In fact, by and large, Chinese research hubs have jumped ahead of their American counterparts. The National Institutes of Health, Yale University and the University of California, San Diego did not make the cut. This comes even as U.S. investment in medical and health R&D rose 11.1% from 2019 to 2020, according to a report from Research! América (PDF). That said, the substantial gain may be due in large part to investments related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As has been the case in years past, the private sector continues to dominate R&D spending in the U.S., making up 66% of research investment. The federal government is next up with slightly more than a quarter of investment, followed by academic and research institutions at 6.9%.
Diving deeper into academic and research institutions, colleges and universities make up the vast majority of the spending. Together, they notched a 3.86% spending increase in 2020 compared to 2019. But independent hospital medical research centers have also grown in their share of spending, with 5.4% growth from 2019 to 2020.
Irrespective of how the U.S. has spent R&D money, the list speaks for itself: China is making gains as the U.S. steps back. I hope you enjoy this roundup, and don’t hesitate to reach out at mbayer@questex.com with new life science research as it’s published.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences rose to the top of the Nature Index list in 2021. (RomoloTavani/iStock/Getty Images Plus)
1. Chinese Academy of Sciences
Nature Index score: 1,963.00
The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) not only takes the No. 1 position on this list of top R&D institutes, it has also cemented its dominance. Its score in the Nature Index rose compared to a year ago, while those of its six nearest competitors all fell.
The six institutions in the chasing pack are based in the U.S. or Europe. The only other institutions in the top 10 to grow their score are also based in China and occupy the eighth, ninth and tenth spots on the list.
CAS’ dominance is underpinned by strength in chemistry, although only a subset of its publications in the space are relevant to drug development. CAS published papers on topics such as the identification of G protein-biased ligands for chemokine receptor CCR1 last year but also did lots of chemistry work unrelated to biotech.
Life sciences is a much smaller contributor to CAS’ leadership position, with the academy’s output in the area being dwarfed by its activity in chemistry, physical sciences and earth and environmental science. Even so, CAS published some notable life science papers last year.
The Nature ranking put particular weight on a paper published in Cell about the structural and functional characterizations of infectivity and immune evasion of the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2. Work to shed light on the conformational dynamics of beta and kappa variant spike proteins also scored highly.
CAS’ work has manifested in papers that made international news. Last year, Fierce Biotech reported on CAS’ role in computational screening that suggested Acrotech Biopharma’s chemotherapy Folotyn may work against COVID-19 and in revealing the promise of a hydrogel-based mRNA vaccine for cancer.
The news continued into 2022. A collaboration between CAS and ShanghaiTech University that showed how psychedelics exert antidepressant effects made headlines in January.
Harvard University received a huge win earlier this year when the U.S. patent office ruled in its favor over CRISPR tech. (The Harvard Crimson)
2. Harvard University
Nature Index score: 910.93
For years, Harvard University has ranked among the world’s top research hubs, and 2021 was no exception.
Though its score dipped 4.1% from the prior year, the prestigious institution still has a much higher output than the No. 3 research hub, Max Planck Society.
Harvard has more than 20 buildings dedicated solely to scientific research but also works beyond its own plentiful resources, touting an expansive partnership network. One of Harvard’s most significant collaborators is the Broad Institute of MIT—which sits at No. 7 on this list.
The MIT/Harvard coalition received a win in a long-standing CRISPR legal case earlier this year when the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ruled in their favor. The latest proceeding determined that MIT/Harvard were the first to invent CRISPR/Cas9 for editing a certain type of human cell that can be used to make medicine. In opposition stands the University of California, the University of Vienna and Nobel Prize winner Emmanuelle Charpentier, Ph.D., which have appealed the ruling. The patent fight began back in 2016, and whoever triumphs could make millions of dollars in royalties.
Harvard’s deep research roots also mean the university is entrenched in biotech. Last fall, Harvard and National Resilience—the Californian biotech that helped Moderna manufacture its COVID-19 vaccine in Canada—teamed up for a five-year R&D alliance. Resilience committed $30 million to the cause, and Circle Therapeutics is expected to be the first biotech to emerge from the alliance. The company will be based around a Harvard professor’s technology that develops new muscle stem cell therapies for skeletal muscle disorders.
The Max Planck Society recently released promising data on a new tuberculosis vaccine. (Noppanun Lerdwattanapaisan/Getty Images)
3. Max Planck Society
There’s definitely buy-in that digitalisation is essential – and this was before COVID-19, which has certainly driven home that remote solutions are needed. We first did a similar study in 2016 and only one in four respondents felt digital capabilities would help drive patient outcomes and improve R&D productivity. Fast-forward to those who responded to a survey in 2019 and 72% said that they thought digital would drive success in achieving key strategic R&D imperatives. And then COVID-19 hit, and we’ve all seen a rise in telemedicine and biopharma companies looking to virtualise clinical trials, as well as interest in remote working solutions for scientists in labs.
That is consistent with what respondents already identified as key strategic imperatives they said they wanted to focus their digitalisation efforts on. They want to use digital to be more focused on patient outcomes and improve R&D productivity. So, there’s buy-in. The challenge is making it happen.
Good