United Kingdom is lagging in innovation, as shown by the market share of new medicines in various countries, including primary care and hospital markets.
United Kingdom is lagging in innovation, as shown by the market share of new medicines in various countries, including primary care and hospital markets. Reports from various sources prove that Europe has shown very low growth in the field of pharmaceuticals and hospital care.
Europe has a new plan in order to counter the worsening competitive position of its biopharmaceutical enterprises. The policy is nominally based on a report submitted by Boston based international consultancy Charles River Associates (CRA) to the European Commission to investigate the status and reasons for Europe’s decline in Pharma industry.Although the US market experienced similar landslides it has been able to grow to higher proportion in the field of new biologics. This is not happening in the case of Europe. “The decline is real and is likely to get worse,” noted independent biotech consultant David Glover, former research director of Cambridge Antibody Technology. Many young European firms, he said, are becoming disillusioned with the lack of reward for innovation.
European Commission Vice president Gunter Verheugen has announced a policy for referendum of the Europe’s biotech policy. The first aspect would be to double the financial support for life sciences research, taken from the six year, $132 billion Research Framework program that begins in 2007. The second aspect would be greasing the wheels of safety and efficacy testing for new types of medicines. The third policy would be to resolving a patchwork of different national systems for drug pricing, which” place a significant burden on industry and can delay access to the market.” The last policy of restricting on patients access to information on new medicines are to be considered.
Verheugen is confident that the program will deliver some concrete results within three years.
Source: Nature Biotechnology
