| Cowboy 2005-04-28, 8:53 am |
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http://news.ft.com/cms/s/6134a8c2-b...000e2511c8.html
Europe 'lagging further behind US on drugs'
By Andrew Jack in London
Published: April 27 2005 22:00 | Last updated: April 27 2005 22:00
pharmaceutical graphicEurope is slipping ever further behind the US in
innovation in the drug industry and needs to revamp its research and
healthcare systems to reverse the trend, according to a report to be
released by the European Commission next month.
The US is increasingly dominating new medicine development at Europe's
expense, when measured by labour productivity, influential patent
filings, research collaboration and new drug launches, it says.
Recent EU efforts to reduce the gap in "high value-added"
pharmaceutical and biotechnology work have been ineffective, Fabio
Pammolli, author of the study and professor of economics and management
at the university of Florence, told the FT.
His research, requested by the previous Commission last year, comes at
a time when Jos=E9 Manuel Barroso, EU president, is struggling to
maintain momentum with the "Lisbon agenda" to boost competitiveness.
Prof Pammolli recommends Europe introduce systems of co-payment and
other private mechanisms to help supplement over-burdened state health
systems in paying for medical expenses, in order to raise prices paid
to drug developers towards levels almost twice as high in the US.
But he also stresses that in the US the prices for older, generic drugs
that have come off patent are much lower than in Europe. This helps
stimulate innovation by concentrating resources on newer drugs.
Prof Pammolli also calls for greater collaboration and competition
between European research institutes. He proposes a shift from work
carried out in isolation by companies, to US-style market-driven
"virtuous networks" between companies, hospitals and universities.
"The [French] Pasteur Institute co-operates more with the [US] National
Institutes of Health than with the [German] Max Planck Institute," he
said. At the same time he argues that there should be more EU-wide
competitive research funding, rather than member states largely funding
their own national facilities.
But he suggested warned that the US may in future lose its lead in
innovation to countries such as India and China.
Prof Pammolli previously submitted studies to the Commission at the
start of the decade, examining innovation in the pharmaceutical and
biotechnology sectors.
His thinking helped inspire the G10 Medicines report produced by the
Commission designed to improve the competitiveness of the industry in
Europe. But he said these recommendations did not tackle the most
important and sensitive issues such as reform of pricing and healthcare
payments.
Based on data in the period 1996-2002, his new findings include: 70 per
cent of world drug research and development collaboration originated in
the US against 25 per cent in Europe; 70 per cent of "new chemical
entities", the basis of innovative medicines, were launched first in
the US - normally one to two years ahead of in Europe; More than half
of total global patents were registered in the US, and their influence
was disproportionate, representing 70 per cent of academic citations.
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