management, it is easy to understand the leading position of the United States in
personalized medicine approach.
The influence of the world economic crises on technology development can be
recognized in Table 2. The pharmaceuticals field of technology has been influenced
by the economy crises, and this is observed in the decreased number of granted
patents. At the same time in the field of biotechnology, the number of granted
patents constantly grows. This can be explained through the effect of satisfying the
market needs for the specific products in the everlasting process of the market
segmentation.
The application of granted patents in the fields of biotechnology and pharma-
ceuticals suggests that there is a significant impact of technology transfer process
Table 1 European patents
granted in 2014 by the field of
technology
Biotechnology Pharmaceuticals
Austria 22 18
Belgium 45 36
Switzerland 94 124
Germany 267 204
Denmark 67 24
Spain 24 34
Finland 15 2
France 124 120
United Kingdom 87 95
Ireland 6 23
Italy 31 80
Netherlands 76 44
Norway 8 12
Sweden 30 33
Australia 37 36
Canada 42 56
P.R. China 23 53
Israel 29 47
Japan 254 239
R. Korea 40 49
Chinese Taipei 5 13
United States 964 819
Total 2290 2161
Source: European Patent Office (EPO) ( 2014 )Table 2 European patents granted in 2005–2014 by technology field of biotechnology and
pharmaceuticals
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Biotechnology 1618 2344 1892 2186 2042 2172 2132 2088 2095 2353
Pharmaceuticals 2282 2468 2106 2242 1892 1878 1820 2098 2146 2319Source: European Patent Office (EPO) ( 2014 ); adapted by author
Personalized Medicine and Technology Transfer 99