Statistics of US Businesses

• The US Census publishes an annual Statistics of US Businesses data set that segments employers in the United States by industry and size.
• Within this data set, biotech/pharma companies fall under NAICS code 541714: Research and Development in Biotechnology (except Nanobiotechnology).
• This past March 2020, the US government released its most current data for this industry, for the year 2017.
• This data set segments biotech/pharma companies in the country by total employee count, and provides both the total number of businesses as well as the total number of individuals employed for each level of firm size.
• By combining this data with Gartner's definition for small, medium and enterprise businesses (see below, as well as at this link) the research team was able to obtain the total number of small versus medium/enterprise biotech/pharma companies in the US, as well as how many people they employ.
• The source data for this analysis as well as a synthesis of relevant findings have been provided within the enclosed spreadsheet.

Summary of First Hour of Research

• The research team used the first hour of research to confirm the availability of the requested information about biotech/pharma companies in the US as well as to provide a synthesis of initial findings.
• Given that a definition for small, medium and enterprise businesses was not provided, and considering that the US does not use a consistent definition for these terms, the research team used the following definition for these terms from Gartner: "Small businesses are usually defined as organizations with fewer than 100 employees; midsize enterprises are those organizations with 100 to 999 employees." If a different definition for small, medium and enterprise firms should be used within future research, this can be accommodated in response to a follow-up comment.
• While the initial research period identified relevant information related to the number of small/medium/enterprise biotech/pharma companies in the US, the initially located data was somewhat dated (as of 2017) and did not differentiate between medium/enterprise businesses.
• We therefore recommend further research to obtain more current and precise data on the requested subject.