The benefits of a competitive biopharmaceutical sector

A more competitive biopharmaceutical sector would generate clear, tangible benefits for Europe and Europeans:

The numbers speak for themselves:

Europe continues to perform well in scientific publications. However, US attracts more than double the R&D investment. Europe’s challenge is to translate academic excellence into products and services that can drive better health and economic growth.

A new reality calls for new thinking

Europe’s health systems are under increasing strain from an ageing population and rising burden of chronic disease, all at a time when defence and security are placing additional pressure on national finances.

Coping with these pressures mean national health systems are often forced into focusing only on short-term cost containment, missing opportunities for better prevention and care, greater efficiency, and long-term savings across the system by investing in innovation that can dramatically improve the long-term sustainability of our healthcare.

It is time to rethink how we value innovation in Europe, from a cost to the system to an investment in a healthier future for Europe.

Europe’s policy makers have a choice: continue as before, caring for more and more people but with stagnant or even reduced budgets, or rethink how healthcare is organised and budgets are allocated. That means looking more strategically at the investments that will deliver better health for patients, strengthen healthcare sustainability, and generate economic growth and security for the long-term.

On a per-capita basis, high-income European countries spend roughly half of what the United States spends on innovative medicines.

These differences are driven by how governments value and reimburse innovation. Investing in the true value of medicines means reforming how we reward them: expanding HTA to capture wider societal benefits, speed up pricing and reimbursement procedures, increasing investment in innovative medicines and eliminating clawbacks.