3State incentives for specific industries

3.4. Other specific industries

3.4.1. Mining

3.4.1.1. Aid for risk prevention and mining safety

The regulations governing aid to the mining sector in the area of risk prevention and mining safety are currently set out in Order TED/1079/2020, of November 11, 2020, establishing the specifications in the context of native and sustainable mining.

The aim of the subsidies regulated in this Order is to encourage the development of projects related to mining safety (from the standpoint of investment and training) carried out by interested non-profit enterprises and entities, for the purpose of helping to reduce mining accidents in Spain, thereby effectively fostering, by extension, both the ecological transition process and the process of combating the demographic challenge.

The call for aid applications for projects and actions under the aforesaid Order for the year 2023 was made in the Decision of November 21, 2022, of the Secretariat of State for Energy (amended by the Decision of February 16, 2023), and it has a budget of €2.3 million.

Accordingly, and without limitation, suffice it to say that this most recent call for aid applications deems projects carried out in Spain in the area of mining and targeted at the areas of (i) significant investments in mining safety, including projects aimed at improving health and safety in mining sties, benefit mines and tunnels or galleries in the excavation phase, or (ii) training programs in mining safety, specifically, those aimed at providing face-to-face training to the personnel of entities subject to the Regulations on Basic Rules for Mining Safety, to be eligible for financing.

Potential beneficiaries of this aid include SMEs that hold the title to the mining public domain to which the project relates or the authorization from the mining authority for the execution project for tunnels or galleries in the excavation and shoring phase, provided that they are not affected by Council Decision of 10 December 2010 on State aid to facilitate the closure of uncompetitive mines (Decision No 2010/787/EU). Non-profit institutions can also be beneficiaries of this aid, in which case they will not have to hold the title to the mining public domain, it being sufficient for them to provide evidence that they have a lawful interest relating to the mining activity and that they meet the requirements laid down by the above-mentioned Order.

The aid granted under a competitive procedure and its amount will consist of a percentage of the approved eligible investment and varies according to the following scheme:

• Aid for significant investments in mining safety: Only SMEs can qualify for this aid, although the maximum aid intensity will vary depending on the type of SME. In the case of micro and small enterprises, the intensity can be up to 20% of the eligible costs, whereas in the case of medium-sized enterprises, it cannot exceed 10%, subject to a minimum amount of €12,000 for the aid granted.
• Mining safety training projects: Only non-profit institutions can apply for this aid. The intensity of the aid may be up to 100% of the cost of the approved eligible investment, tied to hours of instruction evidenced and to the performance of complete courses presented in the project. In any event, the maximum amount granted to a project of this kind is €65,000 per application, whereas its minimum amount is set at €4,000. As limits on this line, it should be noted (i) that the maximum number of eligible hours is 8 hours per course, with a mandatory minimum of 3 hours; and (ii) the maximum permissible cost per worker and hour, and the total cost per worker set in each annual call for aid applications may not exceed €350 under any circumstances.

3.4.1.2. Action Framework for Coal Mining

The series of measures in support of this industry is set out in the Framework Agreement for a Fair Transition in Coal Mining and the Sustainable Development of Mining Areas for 2019-2027 (Framework Agreement), executed between the Ministry for the Green Transition and the Demographic Challenge and the labor union and employer representatives from the sector.

This Framework Agreement, which has been in force since December 31, 2018, bears in mind the current situation of the Spanish mining industry following the end of the aid granted to cover losses in the mines pursuant to EU requirements and in line with the current energy transition process.

Thus, the main objectives of this Framework Agreement are as follows:

1. To reactivate economic growth and encourage alternative development in mining areas in order to achieve their structural transformation, economic recovery and social welfare.
2. To increase the flexibility of the conditions laid down for businesses that wish to continue to extract coal as from 2019 and that have to return the aid received in accordance with the above-mentioned Decision 2010/787/EU on State aid aimed at facilitating the closure of uncompetitive coal mines.
3. To maintain lines of aid to encourage the creation of business projects aimed at generating employment and providing support for the creation of related infrastructures that enable workers that have become unemployed due to the closure of the mine to regain employment.
4. To design specific measures to train workers in the coal mining industry and maintain aid that helps to cover the exceptional costs linked to closure set forth in EU legislation.

Against this backdrop, the Framework Agreement instruments the following principal lines:

1. Aid for exceptional costs incurred by coal businesses:

   This line of aid, in force for the 2019-2025 period, is directed at mining companies included in the Spanish Plan for the Closure of Uncompetitive Coal Mines in accordance with the aforesaid Decision 2010/787/EU.

   It includes two types of aid:

   1. Social aid for workers in coal production units.

      This aid has already been specifically implemented by Royal Decree-Law 25/2018, of December 21, 2018 on urgent measures for a fair transition of the coal mining industry and the sustainable development of coal mining areas (amended by Royal Decree-Law 27/2021, of November 23, 2021, which extended to 2025 the social assistance for labor costs of workers affected by the closure of coal mines and employed in environmental restoration efforts) and, where not expressly regulated in this law, by Royal Decree 676/2014, of August 1, 2014 establishing rules on aid due to employment costs aimed at covering exceptional costs related to plans for the closure of production units in coal mining businesses.

      In particular, Royal Decree 676/2014 sets forth the direct grant of aid to companies that are pursuing or have pursued an activity related to coal production, to enable them to cover certain costs incurred on termination of their workers’ employment contracts as a result of the closure of coal production units used for the generation of electricity included under the national Closure Plan.

      The purpose of this aid is to alleviate the social and regional consequences of the closure of mines and is projected to cover labor costs for older workers and compensated resignation.

      In addition, the Framework Agreement provides for other social aid aimed at workers affected who do not meet the requirements to access the above-mentioned aid.

   2. Aid of an exceptional nature aimed at covering the costs of closure of the production units and offsetting the environmental impact.

      The Framework Agreement implements this aid in order to cover the work or measures included in the restoration plans that have been authorized in advance by the competent mining authority. Eligible for this aid are mining companies that have requested authorization to carry out, as applicable, the project to definitively abandon the facilities or the project for the definitive closure of the facilities, and which meet all other statutory requirements to be able to qualify for this aid.

   The Framework Agreement also includes the possibility of adopting measures in support of workers in the industry that continue mining after December 31, 2018 in the production units of the companies included in the Spanish Closure Plan and which intend to close between 2019-2025.

   Other measures are also established for workers in the industry such as (i) the performance of restoration activities; (ii) inclusion in job vacancy services; or (iii) the grant of social aid for workers in processes of reviewable total disability.

   For example, as regards the above-mentioned restoration activities, it is worth noting Royal Decree 341/2021, of May 18, 2021, regulating the direct grant of aid for the environmental restoration of areas affected by the energy transition in the context of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan relating to projects for areas degraded as a result of coal mining, in the Autonomous Communities of Asturias, Aragón and Castilla y León. The Royal Decree seeks to mitigate the difficult labor and social situation in these areas as a result of the closures and added difficulties resulting from the pandemic caused by COVID-19, by promoting the maintenance of employment, in particular of surplus miners and employees of ancillary enterprises and the creation of economic activity in these territories, thereby contributing to the maintenance of the population and the creation of jobs in the short term.

   Actions that are implemented from the time the subsidy is formalized under the agreement or the related addendum through to May 31, 2026 – so that the milestones and targets can be certified before August 31, 2026, in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2021/241 of the European Parliament and the Council of 12 February 2021 – will be eligible.

2. Measures to revive mining areas aimed at financing new business facilities and extending existing ones.

   Individuals who pursue the activities on which the grant of this aid is based in the areas affected by the restructuring and modernization of the coal mining industry qualify for this aid.

   Specifically, investment projects which generate employment in the area of economic activity that may receive aid, are eligible for finance, provided the following conditions are met:

   1. Business projects with an investment in excess of €100,000, which undertake to create 3 or more job positions and which also meet the other requirements of the Framework Agreement.
   2. Aid to small investment projects under the following conditions:
      • Minimum amount of €30,000 and a maximum of €500,000, with minimum undertakings to create employment.
      • Fall within any of the economic activities that are eligible for finance, provided that they are carried out in any of the municipalities included in the territory covered by the Closure Plan.
   3. Aid for alternative development in mining areas:

      Infrastructures located in the municipalities affected by closures of the coal mining industry are eligible for this aid.

      At present, aid aimed at boosting the development of mining areas is regulated by Royal Decree 675/2014, of August 1, 2014, regulating the direct grant of aid aimed at fostering the alternative development of coal mining areas, through the development of infrastructure projects and restoration projects in areas that have been degraded as a result of mining activities.

      Autonomous communities, municipal councils and other local entities included in the geographic area of the Royal Decree, in accordance with Annex I of same (i.e., the above-mentioned territories of Aragón, Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León, and Asturias), are eligible for this aid.

      The timeframe envisaged for this aid is until 2024, although in accordance with the regulation of the Framework Agreement, the material execution of the actions that can be financed may be extended until 2027.

   The Framework Agreement establishes the possibility that mining areas may qualify for other additional measures included in the Plan for Urgent Action in Fair Transition for the 2019-2021 close, as agreed upon between the autonomous communities, local entities and social actors.

With the aim of achieving the objectives proposed and implementing the measures established in the Framework Agreement described above, the following Orders have been published:

1. Order TED/1239/2022, of December 14, 2022, approving the specifications for the grant of aid aimed at small investment projects that create or maintain jobs, fostering the alternative development of just transition areas, for the 2022-2027 period.

   The aim of this aid is to encourage individuals and entities to locate small business investment projects in areas affected by the closure of coal mines, coal-fired power plants and nuclear power plants as well as their surroundings, with the ultimate goal of generating alternative economic activities in such areas so as to create new jobs or maintain existing ones to foster the development of the area, in view of their status as disadvantaged regions.

   The aid will be granted under a competitive procedure and has the following beneficiaries: private individuals or legal entities, as well as the groupings of which they form part, tenancies in common and self-employed workers that are going to undertake small business investment projects that create or maintain jobs and are located in the municipalities in any of the just transition areas that appear in the General Action Guidelines for the design of the Just Transition Agreements established between the Ministry for the Green Transition and Demographic Challenge, the relevant departments of the Autonomous Communities and the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces, as well as in the Just Transition Agreements that are signed pursuant to the provisions of article 28 of Law 7/2021, of May 20, 2021, on climate change and the energy transition and listed in Schedule I to the above-mentioned Order¹⁹.

   The aid regulated is supplemental to and compatible with other state aid granted by other public authorities, provided that the maximum amount of all the aid does not exceed the projected cost of the investment. In the event of an accumulation of aid received by a project, the overall amount that is considered “de minimis” may not exceed the maximum limit of €200,000 during any period of 3 fiscal years or the period that is stipulated in each call for aid applications.

   Projects that apply for aid must meet the following requirements:

   • The work of the project can have started up to a year before the date of the aid application. For these purposes, start of the work means the start of the actual construction work under the investment or the first firm commitment to order equipment or any other commitment that makes the investment irreversible.
   • The eligible investment must be at least €30,000 and up to a cap of €500,000, and the execution of the minimum investment envisaged must be guaranteed at all times.
   • The level of employment existing at the enterprise must remain the same from the date of the aid application, and for at least the three years following the deadline for completing the investments. However, for newly created enterprises or enterprises that do not have an initial workforce on the application date, as a minimum requirement they must create a job between the aid application date and the deadline established in the decision granting the aid. The job must be maintained for at least three years.
   • Comply with the maximum completion period set in the relevant call.

   The aid will take the form of a non-repayable grant and cannot exceed the cap of €200,000 if granted to a single enterprise, during any period of three fiscal years or the period that is force in each call according to the criteria set by the European Commission. In determining the amount of the aid (in gross grant equivalent terms), projects that are located in the municipalities listed in Schedule I to the Order may receive a grant of up to 30%, 40% or 50% of the eligible investment²⁰, depending on whether it is a large enterprise, medium-sized enterprise or a small enterprise (including micro enterprises).

2. Order TED/1240/2022, approving the specifications for the grant of aid aimed at business projects that create jobs, fostering the alternative development of just transition areas, for the 2022-2027 period.

   The aim and the scope of application of the aid regulated under this Order are, generally speaking, the same as those established by Order TED/1293/2022 described in the preceding section, although with the difference that the projects are not required to be small in scale.

   Job creating business investment projects belonging to all of the economic activities that qualify to receive aid in accordance with the applicable Spanish and EU legislation, except for the steel, shipping, coal, transportation, etc. industries, are eligible for the aid. Investments related to the production, processing, transport, distribution, storage or combustion of fossil fuels, or waste incineration, among others, are also excluded²¹.

   The municipalities where the projects are located must appear in the national regional aid map approved for Spain for the 2022-2017 period.²²

   In the case of aid for projects by large enterprises, and for a fundamental change in the production process, the eligible costs must exceed the depreciation of the assets linked to the activity to be modernized in the course of the preceding three fiscal years. For aid awarded for a diversification of an existing establishment, the eligible costs must exceed by at least 200% the book value of the assets that are reused, as registered in the fiscal year preceding the start of works.

   The requirements imposed on the projects are similar to those laid down in Orden TED/1239/2022, albeit with some special features:

   • The work cannot have started before the date of submission of the aid application.
   • The eligible investment must be at least €100,000, and the execution of the investment must be guarantee at all times.
   • Projects to which aid relates must create at least 3 jobs between the aid application date and the deadline set in the grant decision, and the jobs must be maintained for at least three years. .
   • All projects to which aid relates must be executed and have paid at least 15% of the investment considered eligible before the end of the 9 months following the date of notification of the final decision approving the aid requested for the project.
   • For financing purposes, (i) at least 25% of the total of the eligible costs must be financed by the beneficiary with equity or external financing, free from any type of public aid; and (ii) the enterprise or beneficiary must evidence a financial contribution, via equity or external financing, entailing at least 5% of the envisaged investment costs.
   • They must be executed within the maximum time period set in the relevant call.

   The aid will take the form of a non-repayable grant and its amount will be determined according to criteria similar to that described above for Order TED/1239/2022, and the maximum aid intensity limits established in the 2022-2027 regional aid map for Spain depending on the municipalities comprising the applicable territorial scope of this aid scheme may not be exceeded.

   Under Order TED/1294/2020, the Office of the Head of the Institute for the Just Transition issued its Decision of April 16, 2021, calling for applications for the aid for that year for business projects that foster the alternative development of coal mining areas, subject to a cap of €20,000,000. Pursuant to the above-mentioned Order TED/1240/2022, the Office of the Head of the Institute for the Just Transition issued its Decision of March 3, 2023, calling for applications for aid aimed at job-creating business projects that foster the alternative development of just transition areas for fiscal year 2023, with a total budgetary allocation of €40,000,000.00.

3.4.2 Industrial Investment

The process of adapting certain traditional industrial sectors to new forms of production, against a backdrop of processes to rationalize and modernize the business segment, has caused severe losses in the productive fabric and a significant elimination of jobs.

In an effort to mitigate and, to the greatest extent possible, avoid such noxious effects on the industrial fabric as a whole and, in particular, on the areas most affected by the aforesaid adaptation process, the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism has been launching support initiatives with a view to promoting, regenerating or creating the industrial fabric.

Against this backdrop, the Program for Reindustrialization and Strengthening of Industrial Competitiveness (the “REINDUS” Program) had been the specific instrument of financial support for the development of strategic industrial sectors until its last call for applications for the year 2020²³. Currently, it is the Productive Industrial Investment Support Fund (“FAIIP”), created by means of additional provision fifty-seven of Law 11/2020, of December 30, 2020, on the General State Budget for 2021 and managed by the state-owned company SEPI Desarrollo Empresarial S.A. SME or SEPIDES (www.sepides.es) which has been accomplishing similar aims, namely, that of fostering industrial development, strengthening competitiveness and maintaining Spain’s industrial capacities.

Against this backdrop, and by means of its Decision of January 31, 2023, the Evaluation, Monitoring and Oversight Committee of the FAIIP approved the call for applications for 2023 with an endowment of €1.5 billion applicable to the combined transactions corresponding to the 2023 calendar year, which are distributed among (i) ordinary loans (up to €1.125 billion, i.e., 75% of the total), (ii) participating loans (up to €300 million, 20% of the total) and (ii) equity interests (up to €75 million, the remaining 5%).²⁴

The potential beneficiaries are any commercial company or cooperative with registered office and establishment in Spain, duly incorporated and not belonging to the public sector, which pursues or is going to pursue an activity consisting of industrial production and industrial services²⁵, regardless of its size, and which must submit an application for financing via the Fund’s website.

The financial support that these projects could receive, in general, is instrumented through long-term loans, with the following types of actions eligible for financing:

• Creation of industrial establishments, in the sense of stating up a new production activity anywhere in Spain.
• Relocation of industrial establishments, which includes actions aimed at changing the location of a prior production activity to anywhere else in Spain.
• Improvements and/or modifications of production lines, that is, investing in equipment that enables the modernization of existing production or process lines or which generates the implementation of new production or process lines, in industrial establishments that are already in production at the time of the application, expressly including the productive implementation of technologies from the “Connected Industry 4.0” and of actions in the lines aimed at environmental sustainability (reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, reduction in vulnerability to climate change impacts, pollution prevention or introduction of the circular economy in the production process).

Merely replacing the machinery and/or part of the components or auxiliary production elements, as well as repairs and maintenance and the acquisition of companies are excluded from these definitions.

Projects of the above kind must be technically viable according to the state of the art at industrial scale.

Projects must be located in Spain and for new projects not yet started, the start of their implementation must take place within not more than 2 years from the date on which the financing from the FAIPP Fund is formalized. However, the items of the project budget that have been executed within the 9 months preceding the application date are also considered eligible.

The financing under the Fund is purpose-determined in nature, so it is conditional on the actual implementation of the project submitted and the assets acquired must be used to pursue the industrial activity for which the financing was granted for a minimum period that will range from 3 to 5 years, depending on the repayment period of the financing.

The call will be open until the funds are used up and, accordingly, applications are not subject to a deadline and will be processed in the order submitted to SEPIDES.

The following are considered eligible expenses:

• Acquisition of fixed assets:
  • Tangible fixed assets: Expenses relating to (i) civil engineering (investments in urban development and pipelines), (ii) buildings and installations (investments to acquire, build, expand or fit out industrial buildings, as well as their installations), and (iii) production devices and equipment (acquisition of assets directly linked to production or the production process).
  • Intangible fixed assets: (i) Specific software linked to the production process, (ii) patents, licenses, trademarks and the like, and (iii) research and development directly linked to the production process and to production devices and equipment.
• Expenses relating to (i) own staff and external collaborative arrangements required to design and/or redesign processes, directly linked to the devices and equipment in question, (ii) credit rating linked to the application for financing, (iii) audits, during the term of the financing, in the case of companies not subject to statutory audit requirements, and (iv) audits associated with justifying the investment in the context of the financing.

The acquisition cost of the eligible investments and expenses may not exceed the market value under any circumstances. SEPIDES may ask the beneficiary to prove this point by providing the appropriate supporting documentation.

The minimum amount of funding to be granted is set at €200,000, while the maximum amount of the funding to be granted will be 75% of the budget considered eligible (which is the amount from adding together the amounts of the investment and eligible expense items subject to the limit that the investments in production devices and equipment and specific software linked to the production are at least 50% of the budget) and cannot exceed €60 million per transaction.

In addition, the amount of the financing from the FAIIP will be conditional on the enterprise’s outstanding risk with the Fund, adjusted by the amount covered by first-demand guarantees, being a maximum of 5 times the applicant’s duly evidenced equity. In the case of companies that form part of the same consolidated group, this rule extends to the group’s consolidated amounts. In addition, the adjusted outstanding risk with the Fund – whether from an enterprise or consolidated group – must be at the most 10% of the cumulative amount of the Fund’s budget allocations.

The financing that can be granted out of this Fund cannot, under any circumstances, constitute State aid and, accordingly, will always be granted at a market or higher interest rate/revaluation. Specifically, the applicable interest rate, which will vary according to the rating of each applicant and to the type of loan granted, is set as follows:

• For ordinary loans: (At a fixed rate) 12-month Euribor plus a fixed spread between 1.5% and 4.5%, subject to a minimum equal to the applicable spread and (at a variable rate) 6-month Euribor plus a spread determined half-yearly by the Committee with a minimum equal to the spread.
• For participating loans: A fixed portion consisting of percentage point above the fixed or variable rate for ordinary loans and a variable tranche linked to activity performance parameters up to 2 percentage points.
• For equity interests: Revaluation established at a fixed rate situated at 2.5 percentage points above the fixed rate of the fixed portion for participating loans.

However, an interest-rate rebate may be applied to the cost of the financing applicable according to the classification. The rebate will be determined by the Committee according to the degree of fulfillment of the industrial impact criteria set out in the following table:

Criterion	Weighting (%)
Priority area	50
Job creation	10
Impact on digital transition	20
Impact on green transition	20

The repayment period of the loan will, as a general rule, be 10 years, including, where applicable, a possible grace period of 3 years both for ordinary loans and for participating loans. In the case of equity interests, the maximum period up to the first term of the sale and purchase of the equity interest will be 5 years.

A first-demand bank or equivalent guarantee must be submitted for 10% of the disbursed amount of the financing for both ordinary and participating loans.

Lastly, it should be noted that SEPIDES will disburse the financing in tranches, conditioning the release of the funds on the fulfillment of the milestones of the project submitted. These milestones must be expressly established in the financing agreement, and the beneficiary must provide documentation supporting the performance of the activities envisaged in each milestone, which must be certified by SEPIDES before releasing the respective disbursement.

3.4.3 Pharmaceutical Industry

In its Decision adopted on November 26, 2021, the Government Delegate Committee for Economic Affairs approved the initiative to Boost Competitiveness in the Pharmaceutical Industry or PROFARMA for the 2021-2022 period, although at the writing of this Guide, the call for 2023 has yet to be published.

In any event, it may be recalled that it is a joint initiative by the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade, the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Science and Innovation, and it is aimed at boosting the competitiveness of the pharmaceutical industry in Spain by modernizing the industry and fostering activities that contribute more added value (such as investments in new industrial plants and in new technologies for production as well as through fostering research, development and innovation.

This modernization entails (i) for national enterprises, seeking wider markets through internationalization, incorporating the use of new technologies in their production processes and R&D&I, improving the focus of their lines of research and (ii) for multinational enterprises, increasing their commitment to developing the industrial structure, boosting their investment effort not only in infrastructures and production activities, but also in R&D&I in Spain, improving the trade balance.

In short, this initiative seeks to enable pharmaceutical companies to progress toward a production model that increases the ability to attract capital and generate stable and quality employment, contributing positively to the increase in Spain’s gross domestic product.

Against this backdrop, the PROFARMA Program has sought to classify and rate enterprises in the pharmaceutical industry which apply for inclusion in the program and which manufacture or market medicinal products for human use and which pursue pharmaceutical R&D&I activities in Spain, with the ultimate aim of publicly acknowledging the effort made by such enterprises in alignment with the general and specific objectives of the Program.

In fact, in the call for the 2021-2022 period, the PROFARMA Program sought, in line with the Pharmaceutical Strategy for Europe, adopted on November 25, 2020, to foster the manufacturing of medicines considered essential or strategic, research, development and manufacturing of new antimicrobial agents to reduce the threat that the development of resistance to antibiotics entails, research, development and manufacturing of medicines for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19, research that better respects animal protection principles, and the development of medicines with a lower environmental impact

In previus calls, it will fell to the Office of the Secretary of PROFARMA (made up of public officials from the Directorate-General of Industry and of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises) to carry out the process of assessment of the enterprises that decide to applied for the Program according to the criteria established in an assessment guide adopted by the head of the Office of the Secretary General for Industry and SMEs. The assessment considered, among other things, both the enterprise’s resources (existence of a production plant, investment in new plants or expansion of existing plants, existence of a basic or preclinical R&D center, investment in new R&D centers, conduct of clinical trials in Spain, human team dedicated to R&D&I, participation in national and international consortiums, etc.) and the results obtained in certain areas (i.e. creation of new jobs, in both manufacturing and research, transfer of technology derived from licensing, improved trade balance, etc.) in the years 2020 and 2021.

Accordingly, and as a result of the assessment conducted, enterprises werew classified in three Groups (A, B and C) depending on (i) whether or not they had their own pharmaceutical production plant or basic or preclinical R&D center and (ii) on the significance (or lack thereof) of the research activity they pursued. Equally, the head of the Office of the Secretary General for Industry and SMEs will assigned them a rating (excellent, very good, good and acceptable) depending on the assessment and points obtained in accordance with the criteria and minimum score stipulated in the regulations.

At the end of each year of the PROFARMA program (2021-2022), the progress made in the targets set was measured using the following indicators:

INDICATORS	2021 CALL	2022 CALL
R&D investment	€40 million	€41 million
Production investment	€340 million	€344 million
R&D&I expenses	€1.25 billion	€1.255 billion
R&D&I employment	5,125	5,150
Production employment	15,200	15,250
Trade balance	€-3.5 billion	€-3.35 billion
% current expenditure on R&D / NHS sales	17.8%	18%

Beyond the PROFARMA Program, it should be noted that the Ministry of Science and Technology signed on March 3, 2021 a Pact for Science and Innovation in which a commitment was made that public funding in R&D&I would regularly increase until reaching 1.25% of GDP in 2030, which would entail reaching 0.75% before 2024. The signatories to the Pact included both agents from the pharmaceutical industry and the National Business Association of the Pharmaceutical Industry (FarmaIndustria).

These aims tie in directly with many of the investments and reforms that were included in Component no. 17 of the National Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan under the heading “Institutional reform and strengthening of the capacities of the national science, technology and innovation system”, in its application to the health field.

In fact, it coincides with one of the specific objectives of the Strategic Economic Recovery and Transformation Project (“PERTE”) in Avant Guard Health approved by Council of Ministers on November 30, 2021, and which consists of (i) fostering the development of advanced therapies and other innovative or emerging drugs and (ii)  facilitating their transfer to clinical practice, through the necessary alliances between the academic and business sectors, contributing to the strengthening of the industrial fabric based on the intensive use of knowledge, to which more than €140 million in public funds will be allocated between the different lines and programs applicable during the 2021-2023 period.

Precisely to make headway in implementing the PERTE, the “Avant Garde Health Alliance” was set up on April 20, 2022, to strengthen public-private partnerships as the key to promoting, through science and innovation, the creation of a high-performance healthcare system based on Precision Medicine, advanced therapies and Artificial Intelligence. The Avant Garde Health Alliance will meet every four months to follow up on the roll-out of the various investment instruments and actions scheduled under the PERTE. It will also serve to issue recommendations on the implementation of this strategic project and as a discussion forum to facilitate an exchange of ideas among the actors involved, particularly in the context of project co-scheduling and co-financing.