The Corona Innovation Race in Science

The corona pandemic and the associated restrictions on social and economic life have been affecting all our lives around the world for several weeks now. Besides, the possible strategy of aiming for herd immunity by infecting 60 to 70 percent of the population, a suitable vaccine is the great hope to restore the “old normality”, as Olaf Scholz calls it, in the near future. Against this background, science and pharmaceutical companies are looking for innovations.

This study examines the flood of scientific publications on the basis of bibliometric data from “Europe PubMed Central” to analyze the spillover effects from science to the pharmaceutical innovation process. The analysis of the scientific publications from December 1, 2019, to April 15, 2020, over time and in comparison to other countries, reveals a flood of new contributions and findings that should help to better understand the virus “SARS-CoV-2” in order to develop an vaccine against this background. In addition to the quantitatively impressive number of publications, the quality of research shows that Germany is a leader in scientific research. This leading role of Germany in the fight against the virus motivates a detailed examination. In addition to an analysis according to locations and institutions, which provides a better understanding of Germany’s research performance, the focus will also be on the significance of this for the pharmaceutical industry in Germany.