Bragging rights

OXFORD - When Germany set out in the mid-1990s to take leadership of European biotech, few believed it was possible. But the publication last week of Ernst & Young's seventh annual European Life Sciences Report indicates that by sheer numbers, Germany now has more biotech companies than the U.K.

While some may be dubious about the numbers - closing in on in 300 companies in each country - the statistics will grab headlines. German politicians and civil servants will be able to claim that federal and state support for entrepreneurial biotech in the past five years has borne fruit. Their British counterparts will no doubt counter with arguments that the U.K. has many more public companies accounting for more than two-thirds of the European industry's total market cap. ...