Each year, those of us who are focused on what it takes to drive scientific discovery look to WIPO’s Global Innovation Index (GII) report for insights into how countries all over the world are supporting innovation.

In its latest edition, published this week, the GII uses some 80 indicators, including R&D, high-tech trade, skilled employment, and the licensing of intellectual property (IP), to evaluate nearly 140 economies on their innovation performance. As countries compete for talent, capital, research capacity, and advanced manufacturing, long-term competitiveness will increasingly depend on their ability to build effective innovation ecosystems supported by strong policy frameworks. At a time of extraordinary scientific progress, the question is not if breakthroughs are happening, but where.

The GII highlights remarkable advances across frontier technologies and underscores an important reality: for ideas to become inventions, they have to navigate a complex journey from the lab to commercial deployment. In the healthcare sector, many may never make it. Understanding where promising ideas stall, and what can help them advance, is therefore critical.

Having spent my career in science and healthcare innovation, what resonated most with me was the observation that many ventures tend to stall at similar “transition points.” These arise as innovators move from research to investable proof of concept, from pilot projects to commercial deployment, and from functioning technologies to sustainable businesses. At each stage, progress can be constrained by financing gaps, limited industrial or manufacturing capacity, shortages of specialized talent, or insufficient understanding of how to protect and manage IP.

Few sectors show the challenge of moving from pilots to pipelines more clearly than life sciences. The GII underlines that the life sciences sector remains a global innovation leader, with more than 11,000 of the 30,000 deep-science start-ups launched globally between 2015 and 2025.

Yet the scale of this entrepreneurial activity should not be confused with an easy path to market. The development of new medicines and vaccines is among the most complex, costly, and high-risk undertakings in science. Only 0.01% to 0.02% of compounds progress from laboratory synthesis to market. This process requires sustained financial investment, robust regulatory expertise, specialized infrastructure, and extensive collaboration among universities, biotechnology firms, and pharmaceutical companies. Stable and predictable IP protections help sustain that long-term investment and collaboration. At every stage, safety, quality, and efficacy are paramount, which is why this sector is among the most stringently regulated.

The importance of IP in driving this innovation

A strong IP system gives innovators and investors greater certainty when undertaking high-risk, long-term research and development. For small biotechnology companies in particular, protected intellectual assets can help attract financing and provide a basis for partnerships with universities, research institutions, and established companies. These collaborations can accelerate the development of new technologies and help promising discoveries progress toward practical use.

One GII statistic captures the growing economic importance of intangible assets: their global value reached USD 80 trillion in 2024, 13 times the level recorded 25 years earlier. This is a reminder that competitiveness increasingly depends not only on physical infrastructure, but also on knowledge, data, IP, and technological know-how.

This is where practical support for innovation matters. At IFPMA, we recognize the importance of these assets. We are proud to work with WIPO and Interpat on WIPO’s IP Clinic initiative, which helps innovators navigate some of the most difficult stages of the innovation journey. Through mentoring, training, and tailored IP roadmaps, entrepreneurs gain practical support to manage and leverage their intellectual assets as they move from discovery to deployment.

Initiatives of this kind can help more entrepreneurs build the capabilities needed to participate in innovation ecosystems, including outside today’s dominant hubs. Today, 89 of the world’s top 100 innovation clusters are concentrated in Asia-Pacific, Europe, and North America. This demonstrates how investment in science, talent, research infrastructure, and intellectual assets can create environments where innovation can thrive. As governments look to strengthen competitiveness and economic growth, these are among the foundations on which innovative economies are built.

Author

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  David Reddy Director General, IFPMA