European drugmakers call for faster trials, more spending to compete with US, China

By Pushkala Aripaka

LONDON, Sept 22 (Reuters) - European drugmakers called for beefed-up government spending on medicines, faster trials and IP protections as they sounded warnings on Tuesday that the continent's pharmaceutical industry risks losing out to the United States and China.

Cash-strapped European governments have been under pressure for some time from lobby groups and drugmakers to rethink how they attract, nurture, value ​and pay for innovative medicines to avoid falling behind in an increasingly competitive world.

Chairs of nine drugmakers including AstraZeneca, GSK, Novo, Novartis, Roche, Sanofi called on the European Union and member states to boost investment in the industry. The other signatories were the chairs of Boehringer Ingelheim, Chiesi and Ipsen.

"Europe's alarm bells are ringing ... without urgent action, strategic sectors like pharmaceuticals face a 'slow agony' of decline," they said in an open letter published on their companies' websites calling for more fiscal flexibility on healthcare spending.

"European governments must create conditions that attract investment in next-generation medicines before it's too late."

The chairs said about 40% of new therapies never reach European patients, adding that the bloc's share of global drug research and development had fallen to 31% from 43% in 1990. Its share of commercial clinical trials had halved to 9% in the last decade.

The drugmakers' warnings are the latest sign of frustration in boardrooms over European systems and policies that move more slowly than in the US and China, which attract billions of dollars more in pharmaceutical investments.

Europe spends some 1% of GDP on pharmaceuticals, compared with 2% in the United States and 1.8% in China.

Amsterdam-based healthcare lawyer Ron Lanton said that while Europe still has "extraordinary scientific capabilities", companies are increasingly planning around much more aggressive US policies, which have already forced companies to rethink investments, launches and prices.

"Europe's pharmaceutical competitiveness problem is not just about R&D funding. Companies are looking at the entire pathway from clinical trials to reimbursement and patient access when deciding where to put capital."

(Reporting by Pushkala Aripaka; Editing by Susan Fenton)