Reforms In Regulatory System Needed For Pharmaceutical Growth

Experts have called for far-reaching reforms in the drug industry regulatory system in order to stimulate growth in the pharmaceutical sector.

Researchers from the Innogen centre at the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) are pointing to a declining trend of innovative drive in the industry and blame it all on  complicated  and expensive regulatory  procedures.

They also say there is a failure of the UK to support basic research, failure of venture capital to invest in early stage research, or failure of the Health Service to provide smart procurement.

They have studied the innovation models in the pharmaceutical industry and how the industry has been able to remain sustainable for so long.  If the system is on a reverse gear, as it were, particularly in the life sciences, it could be more to do with the regulations, they believe.

Regulation has a large impact on the kinds of product that are developed by any industry sector: it is designed to ensure that products are safe, effective and of high quality. Innogen’s research demonstrates that the impacts of regulation in pharmaceuticals are more far-reaching: they determine overall company strategies; which types of companies succeed; and ultimately the structure and dynamism of the sector as a whole. Under current circumstances regulation prevents the development of the radically innovative technologies that could provide opportunities for the sector to become more effective in developing innovative products. Innogen research has predicted that the industry is approaching a tipping point in the not too distant future.

Professor Joyce Tait comments “We do not need less regulation, but smarter regulation, that can deliver expected standards of safety and efficacy, are flexible enough to respond to new scientific discoveries and can do so more efficiently than our current systems within a shorter time frame.”

Innogen research also shows that policymakers and governments need an understanding of all the major causes and relevant options available. Radical regulatory reform for the life science industries needs to be a priority in discussions regarding the future of the industry. Reform could provide the lever to profitably unleash the creativity that has been so effectively generated from public funding of basic science, leading to something closer to the innovative performance that we have seen in information and communication technologies over the past twenty years.

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Source-Medindia