Research and development (R&D) spending in Türkiye’s pharmaceutical sector increased 8.3-fold between 2020 and 2024, rising from 676.2 million Turkish Liras to 5.6 billion liras.
According to data from the Pharmaceutical Sector Review Preliminary Report published by the Turkish Competition Authority, companies ranked among the world’s top 50 pharmaceutical firms by sales as of last year accounted for 88 percent of the U.S. pharmaceutical market and 49 percent of the Turkish market.
The figures indicate that globally active pharmaceutical companies hold a significant share of Turkey’s pharmaceutical market, while domestic and other international firms continue to maintain a strong position.
Globally, pharmaceutical R&D expenditure rose by 3 percent in 2025 compared with the previous year, reaching $201.3 billion. The United States ranked first in global pharmaceutical R&D spending with $130.1 billion.
In Türkiye, the total size of the pharmaceutical market grew from 56 billion liras in 2020 to 479 billion liras last year.
The country’s pharmaceutical R&D spending also increased steadily throughout the 2020-2024 period. The sector spent 676.2 million liras on R&D activities in 2020, while the figure climbed by 723 percent to 5.6 billion liras in 2024.
In addition to R&D, production and foreign trade also stood out in the sector. The share of domestically manufactured medicines in Türkiye remained higher than that of imported medicines in terms of both sales value and the number of boxes sold during the 2020-2025 period.
Last year, domestically manufactured medicines accounted for 59.6 percent of total pharmaceutical sales value, while imported medicines represented 40.4 percent. In terms of the number of boxes sold, domestically produced medicines held a 90 percent share, compared with 10 percent for imported products.
