Local pharmaceutical companies surpassed multinational giants in research and development spending in investment-to-sales ratio last year, but still fell far behind when it came to the total amount.

According to an analysis by CEO Score Daily, an online-based local economic news outlet, Korean pharmaceutical firms invested 13 percent of their sales into R&D.

Celltrion, a biosimilar manufacturer, topped the chart by investing a whopping 29.42 percent of its sales, worth 288.9 billion won ($243.3 million), into R&D. The ratio is higher than Korea’s internet giant Naver (25.13 percent) and Samsung Electronics (7.66 percent).

Also, the average R&D expense-to-revenue ratio of the top-five Korean pharmaceutical companies, which stood at 16.7 percent, was higher than that of the top-five multinational pharmaceutical companies’ 15.7 percent in 2018.

In absolute terms, however, the local firms’ total R&D expenses accounted for only 1.7 percent of that of multinational pharmaceutical companies. Korean companies’ total sales also accounted for only 1.6 percent of that of multinational pharmaceutical companies.