European pharmaceutical companies are sounding the alarm over their declining competitiveness against US and Chinese firms. In a letter to national leaders, executives from major companies, including AstraZeneca and GSK, highlighted that Europe’s share of global pharmaceutical research has dropped significantly, from 43% in 1990 to just 31% today.
The letter emphasizes that the continent is losing ground in clinical trials and drug development, with China now leading in these areas. The nine companies argue that without urgent government action to treat medicines as strategic infrastructure, Europe risks further losses in investment and innovation.
Currently, nearly half of newly approved therapies are not reaching European patients, and those that do face lengthy delays in availability. The disparity in approval times across countries, from 56 days in Germany to over 1,200 days in Romania, underscores the urgent need for regulatory reform.
The pharmaceutical leaders are calling for a collaborative effort to reverse this trend, suggesting that improving clinical trial conditions alone could generate significant economic benefits and create thousands of jobs. They stress that modern medicines should be prioritized similarly to other critical infrastructures like defense and energy.
Source: The Guardian
