Comprehensive advisory for Spain's pharmaceutical and chemical industry

Spain’s pharmaceutical and chemical industry concentrates 162 active companies with aggregate revenues of €19.9 billion and a gross margin of 17.5%, positioning it as one of the manufacturing sectors with the highest intellectual capital intensity. Holding an 8.8% share of the European Union pharmaceutical market, Spain is the fourth-largest producer by volume and hosts globally relevant R&D centres, particularly in the Catalan cluster and the Madrid and Basque Country industrial corridors. The sector provides direct employment to approximately 66,901 workers registered with Social Security — a figure that understates its true impact when the knock-on effect on suppliers, CROs and contracted research centres is taken into account. Regulatory pressure from the AEMPS, NHS pricing mechanisms, patent expiry cycles and growing competition from biosimilar medicines create an environment where intangible tax planning and intellectual property management determine long-term profitability.

At BMC we advise reference and generic medicine laboratories, clinical biotech and molecular diagnostics companies, active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturers and speciality chemical groups. Our highest-value service in this sector is the planning and defence of R&D tax deductions under Article 35 LIS, including coordination with certifying bodies for the issuance of binding reasoned reports before the AEAT. We combine this work with Patent Box structuring — a 60% reduction in the taxable base on qualifying royalties — to maximise the fiscal efficiency of intangible assets developed in Spain, in a sector where an 8.8% European market share reflects an intangible-generating capacity that few industries can match.

For international groups, designing and documenting transfer pricing policies is a non-negotiable priority: the AEAT has intensified its compliance programme targeting related-party transactions in sectors with high intangible density, and investigations can reach back four prior tax years. We help laboratories build defensible transfer pricing policies, prepare documentation required under OECD BEPS Action 13 standards and represent them in audit proceedings or advance pricing agreement (APA) negotiations with the Spanish tax authorities.

The chemical industry — CNAE 20 — faces its own specific challenges: environmental compliance under the REACH Regulation, rising energy costs and the transition towards circular chemistry. We round out our service with grant management covering CDTI, the Carlos III Health Institute and Horizon Europe for translational research projects, and with advisory on corporate transactions — acquisitions of preclinical-stage pipelines, joint ventures for molecule co-development — where intangible asset valuation and specialist due diligence are the axis of the entire deal.