Decline in EU pharma competitiveness

The European pharmaceutical industry is losing competitiveness with itsUS counterpart and there is a process of concentration of R&D into North America, with Europe's talented scientists being offered better opportunities abroad, warns the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations in its annual report for 2000/2001.

Over the past 10 years, R&D investments have doubled in Europe to reach 17 million euros ($14.9 billion) in 2000, but they have multiplied nearly five-fold in the USA, where the figure for last year totaled 24 billion euros. At the same time, the EFPIA points out, the average annual growth in pharmaceutical sales has remained below 10% in Europe, while in the USA this is 15%.

Meanwhile, the European industry's share of the world pharmaceutical market (which has tripled over the last 10 years to reach an estimated 392 billion euros last year), has decreased from 32% to 22%, whereas it has increased from 31% to 43% for the USA.