Like French Tech, healthtech startups achieved a record year in 2021. They lifted 2.3 billion euros. According to the 19th edition of the “France Healthtech” panorama published on February 15 by France Biotech, an association which brings together the main innovative entrepreneurs of healthtech, this corresponds to a 50% increase compared to 2020.
French healthtech startups break records
French startups specializing in health are in great shape. This new fundraising record has enabled them to gain in maturity, recruit a greater number of employees, develop solutions which are now at the marketing stage and assert themselves on international markets. For Franck Mouthon, President of France Biotech, “2021 highlights a new milestone reached by French healthtech”.
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This beautiful year 2021 allows France to rank 2nd in the worldin number of venture capital operations with an average ticket of 13 million euros, compared to 8 million euros in 2020. To carry out this study, analysts from France Biotech asked 427 French healthtech startups. 42% of them are biotech, 22% medtech and 16% specialize in digital health. Among all the start-ups surveyed, 20% of them have at least one subsidiary abroad, particularly in the United States.
R&D and intellectual property are at the heart of the sector’s challenges
According to Chloé Evans, head of sector studies and international relations at France Biotech, “more than twenty French healthtech now have around a hundred employees. In 2021, this panel of companies generated more than 10,000 direct jobs and 79% of them recruited. In 2022, they anticipate more than 2,000 recruitments. 87% of jobs to be filled are in R&D and production”. The study clearly shows that research and development and intellectual property are at the heart of the challenges of healthtech startups.
France Biotech underlines the difficulties of the sector in the definition of the economic model. The association believes that support from the public authorities could be more sustained. 70% of companies surveyed say they are in favor of public authorities launching initiatives to support them in their intellectual property strategy. The study reveals that “the main concern of these companies is market access and reimbursement”. This would be due to a lack of readability on the support of the solutions.
The government is fully aware of this. In his plan “ Health Innovation 2030 » presented in June 2021, the executive plans to set up a “unprecedented support from research to the patient, including industrialization in the territory”.