France's LEEM call for better biotech efforts

Christian Lajoux, president of France's pharmaceutical industry organisation (LEEM), speaking at the health care innovation conference (Innovation Sante 2015) at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, France, has called for a national policy to boost research in the life sciences matched by "a firm and steady commitment" to promote biotechnology. Mr Lajoux explained that the innovative drugs of the future will largely emerge from biotechnology research. Although the LEEM's president noted that French biotechnology investment in 2007 was considerably higher than last year - 622.0 million euros ($874.6 million) versus 167.0 million euros - the sector in France was not matching the performance of other European countries.

One problem, Mr Lajoux noted, is that the European Union's Lisbon Agenda target of turning the continent into "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge economy in the world" by 2010, is off target, in terms of the Agenda's proposal for 3% of Gross Domestic Product to be spent by EU member states on R&D. For France, the results so far indicate stagnation with a virtually-unchanged 2.2% share of GDP spent on research.

Mr Lajoux also contrasted the 177 biotechnology enterprises in France with the 274 in the UK and the 355 in Germany. Taking research into Alzheimer's disease as an example, only one biotechnology firm in this therapeutic area is French, he argued. While France has been falling behind, a new study by the European Commission, quoted by the LEEM, has shown that biotechnology R&D investment in the USA is growing at twice the rate for the EU. Within the EU itself, national performances are uneven, with the UK as sector leader: 28 of 57 companies identified by the Commission as being strong performers in terms of biotechnology R&D are UK-based, with seven in Sweden and six in Germany.