Top 5 Pharmaceutical Companies With Highest R&D Spending

2. AstraZeneca (NASDAQ:AZN)

Total R&D spend by the company in 2019 (in millions of dollars): 6,059

Total R&D spend by the company in 2019 (as a percentage of net sales): 24.85%

The British-Swedish biotech company has been in the headlines throughout 2020 as it attempted to become one of the few companies in the world to come up with a usable vaccine. The fact that it was able to develop a vaccine which earned authorization for use on the general public in less than a year from development. Various countries globally have provided approval for the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

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