Europe Risks Losing Pharma Investment over Drug Prices

Europe will need to rethink how it values and pays for innovative medicines or risk losing pharmaceutical investment, the head of Europe’s main industry lobby has warned.

Stefan Oelrich, president of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), said the industry faced a new reality because Trump wants to link some US medicine prices to the lower prices paid in other wealthy countries, including in Europe.

Drugmakers warn that if European prices fall further, their returns in the lucrative US market could also come under pressure, increasing demands on European governments to pay more for new medicines.

“Europe will have to step up going forward”, said Oelrich, who also heads Bayer’s pharmaceutical division.

Oelrich described Germany as an important test case after the government this month proposed measures to curb healthcare spending.

“Germany is sort of like a harbinger for what Europe can be, in a good and a bad way”, he said.

He warned that pharmaceutical companies had choices about where to invest, saying clinical trials and production would depend on market conditions and demand.

(Reuters, mja)