Singapore: The global biotechnology industry showed a second straight year of increasingly stable financial performance in 2011, according to Ernst & Young's 26th annual biotech report, Beyond borders: global biotechnology report 2012. Established biotech markets registered more than 10 percent revenue growth for the first time since the start of the global financial crisis.

However, longer-term sustainability remains challenging, with the traditional funding-and-innovation model for pre-commercial biotech firms under unprecedented strain and the industry's efforts to date to "do more with less" uncertain to deliver significant productivity gains.

"In this capital-constrained environment, the inefficiency and duplication of the drug R&D paradigm is an indulgence we can no longer afford," says Glen Giovannetti, Ernst & Young's Global Life Sciences Leader. "More than ever, the industry needs to remove duplication, encourage pre-competitive collaboration, pool data and allow researchers to learn in real time."

Key results highlighted in the report include:

Revenue stabilizes: Companies in the industry's established biotech centers (US, Europe, Canada and Australia) achieved revenues of US$83.4 billion in 2011, a 10% increase from 2010 on a normalized basis (after adjusting for the acquisition of three large US-based biotechs by non-biotech buyers).

R&D rebounds: After slashing R&D spending in 2009 and increasing it modestly by 2% in 2010, the industry grew R&D by a healthy 9% (on a normalized basis) in 2011.