Europe will lose out on medical innovation if draft EU reforms pass: Novo Nordisk CEO, Health News, ET HealthWorld
Reuters
March 03, 2023, 15:26 IST
London: Europe will lose out to countries like the US and Japan on new medical research, trials and treatments unless draft rules reforming the European pharmaceutical landscape change, the CEO of Danish drugmaker
Novo Nordisk
warned on Thursday.
The European Commission will present its proposed overhaul of the bloc's pharmaceuticals regulation on March 29, the first major revisions to medicines rules in 20 years. It says drugs need to reach patients more quickly and in all European nations.
Novo's Lars Jorgensen lamented that without changes to the current draft, his company would be forced to research, test and bring products in its pipeline to market in the United States and elsewhere, instead of in Europe.
Novo is the world's biggest producer of diabetes drugs, and Jorgensen said that while the company shares the European Union's wish that patients across Europe have access to the same treatments, Brussels' proposal would delay access for Europe as a whole as companies like his would work elsewhere.
"You're not getting the health benefit and you're not getting the economic activity level from the industry, either. A lose, lose, lose," he said in an interview.
Consumer groups say the changes would make things fairer, for example by shaving off two years of exclusivity on new products unless companies introduce them simultaneously in all 27 member states.
The pharma industry, lobbying hard against parts of the draft, counters that this will introduce uncertainty over whether investment costs will be recouped before generic competition enters, while putting up regulatory hurdles that even the biggest companies will struggle to clear.
Friday, March 3, 2023 at 9:56 am