Fall in innovative productivity in pharmaceuticals

A smoother regulatory process and faster market access for new
drugs would counter the decrease in innovation in the
pharmaceutical sector, indicates a recent EU report.

Since 1999, the number of applications for approvals on new
drugs has fallen from 27 to 17, says a recent report commissioned
by the European Commission. The report indicates that the
decrease in innovation is due mainly to three type
of factors: the increase in costs of developing new and innovative
drugs, to expected low return from innovation and industry
restructuring (mergers and acquisitions). 

To encourage innovation in the sector, the report recommends
that the Commission, member states and industry co-operate closely
on a number of issues. These include improving communication
between regulatory authorities and industry during the key phases
of product development, co-ordination of tax incentives for
research and development and improving public-private co-operation
in research.

The upcoming Luxembourg and United Kingdom presidencies of the
European Union have signalled in their common draft programme
that “improving the state of the competitiveness of the
pharmaceutical industry” is one of the priorities of the
innovation and enterprise policy area. 

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Serious decline in European industrial R&D investment

The first European industrial R&D investment scoreboard reveals that investment in R&D by the top 500 European companies between 2002 and 2003 fell by 2%, whereas for the non-EU 500 companies it grew by 3.9%.