Health-Related Applications Account for One-Quarter of 2018 U.S. Business R & D ; Most Pharmaceutical R & D Focused on Biotechnology

Businesses performed $ 114.5 billion of research and development with health or medical applications in the United States in 2018, according to estimates from the Business Research and Development Survey ( BRDS ) . R&D related to health applications represented 26 % of the total $ 441 billion of R&D performed by businesses in the United States in 2018 and is the largest application area tracked by BRDS. BRDS also found that software, which includes R&D on software products and software embedded in other projects or products, was by far the largest technology focus in 2018, representing over one-third ( $ 165.6 billion ) of all U.S. business R&D performance.
Source: NSF - Statistics on U.S. Science and Engineering Resources - Category: Statistics Source Type: news