The EFPIA president points out that US pricing policy is putting pressure on the continent and warns that the sector will cut back on manufacturing and clinical trials if profit margins are reduced

Consalud.es

The president of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), Stefan Oelrich, has issued a statement in which he asserts that Europe will have to urgently rethink how it values and pays for innovative medicines.

He warns that, should it fail to do so, it “runs the serious risk of losing valuable investment in both drug manufacturing and the development of essential clinical trials”. This warning comes at a time of growing tension, with European governments and drug manufacturers openly clashing over pricing in an increasingly pressured market.

This situation reflects a new global reality driven by US policy. In this regard, Oelrich points out that the ‘most-favoured-nation’ pricing strategy promoted by US President Donald Trump seeks to link the cost of certain medicines in the US to the prices paid by other developed countries, including European ones.

‘Europe runs a serious risk of losing valuable investment in both drug manufacturing and the development of essential clinical trials’

Consequently, multinational pharmaceutical companies are warning that the persistent fall in prices in Europe will have a direct and negative impact on profits in their lucrative US market. This is placing unprecedented pressure on European governments – which are currently facing serious liquidity problems – to bear greater costs for next-generation therapies.

The focus of this dispute now lies in Germany, a country that Oelrich has described as a harbinger and a crucial test case for the continent’s future, following its recent proposal of legislative measures to drastically curb its healthcare spending. Although the head of the pharmaceutical lobby group admitted that German policymakers are listening to the sector’s concerns, he issued a clear warning about the mobility of scientific and business capital.

The executive points out that pharmaceutical companies are entirely free to decide where to allocate their resources, adding that it is highly unlikely that clinical trials will be conducted in places where there are no plans to market the product, or that manufacturing will be maintained in the long term in markets where there is no demand.