GENERIC OPPORTUNITIES IN EASTERN EUROPE

Despite problems, chances are still good for the development of a European generics market, a US meeting on The Global Generics Explosion has heard. Klaus Lichtenberger, executive vice president of Ratiopharm in germany, said that while the good markets in the UK, Northern Europe, Benelux and Germany may still have some potential, the main activities for expansion should center on countries without fully-developed advantages, such as France, Spain, Portugal and Italy.

However, for the generic industry to develop there must be a single European market (including the former European Free Trade Area countries) for drugs, he said. Protectionist actions of some countries which favor research-based companies must vanish and be replaced by a European Waxman-Hatch type of legislation that favors generics, with new commensurate pricing and real Eurogenerics, rather than 17 single domestic products.

In trying to control prescription drug costs, European countries are using a variety of methods, with generics at the bottom of the list, he said. The philosophy of the European Union has been to promote the growth of the European-based drug companies, lately through the mechanism of the Supplementary Protection Certificate. Germany's good generic market is threatened by its new health cost saving law, due to the existing reference pricing, a mandated lower drug budget, a hold on prescribing drugs and a price moratorium, he said. Generics have price not therapeutic advantages, so a significant fall in revenues and income, ongoing higher expense for quality, quality assurance and service, the pressure of a competitive generic market and more and better legal and practical counterstrategies by R&D companies will produce strong concentration in the German market, and more problems for the remaining companies.