Nine European pharma chairs warn of losing ground to US, China rivals

Letter cites $600bn in announced US and China pharma investment

The chairs of nine major European pharmaceutical companies wrote to Andy Burnham and the national leaders of other European countries on Tuesday, warning that the continent is “losing ground” to American and Chinese rivals in developing new medicines and attracting investment.

The letter, entitled “Europe is Losing the Pharma Investment Race – But the Comeback is Within Reach,” was signed by the leaders of Britain’s AstraZeneca and GSK, Denmark’s Novo Nordisk, Germany’s Boehringer Ingelheim, Italy’s Chiesi group, France’s Sanofi and Ipsen, and Switzerland’s Novartis and Roche. It was addressed to Andy Burnham and the national leaders of other European countries.

The executives described the pharmaceutical sector as one of Europe’s great postwar achievements, supporting millions of highly skilled jobs and generating an EU trade surplus of more than €220bn (£188bn). “In our boardrooms, we see Europe losing ground to global competition,” the letter said. “Over $600bn in pharmaceutical investment has been announced in the US and China in the last two years alone.”

The letter called on governments to treat medicines as strategic infrastructure, secure “health sovereignty,” and act now to restore Europe’s competitiveness. “Modern medicines should be treated as vital infrastructure and not be left to others to provide,” the letter said.

Data cited from the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) showed Europe’s share of global pharmaceutical research and development falling from 43% in 1990 to 31%. The continent’s share of commercial clinical trials — where new medicines are tested before regulatory approval — has halved to 9% from 18% a decade ago, with only 4% of such trials focused on cell and gene therapies.

China has overtaken Europe in clinical trials, pharmaceutical patents, and the development of new medicines, according to The Guardian. China’s share of global clinical trials rose from less than 10% to almost 30% over the same period.

Patient access has slowed alongside the investment gap. Nearly half — 49% — of newly approved therapies did not reach European patients last year, up from 46% in 2019, according to EFPIA data. Drugs that do reach Europe take nearly 600 days on average, with delays varying sharply between countries: a median 56 days in Germany compared with 1,201 days in Romania.

The EFPIA has said the root causes of unavailability and delay range from the speed of regulatory processes to insufficient budgets in some European countries.

The executives argued that closing the clinical trials gap alone could generate €53bn and create 82,000 jobs in Europe. They urged national leaders to “reverse Europe’s declining competitiveness, unleash a new era of medical discovery, and secure health sovereignty.”

The letter’s signatories included Michel Demaré, chair of AstraZeneca; Jonathan Symonds, his counterpart at GSK; Lars Rebien Sørensen, chair of Novo Nordisk, the maker of Wegovy and Ozempic; Severin Schwan of Roche; Giovanni Caforio of Novartis; and Frédéric Oudéa of Sanofi.

The industry call follows a public dispute last year between pharmaceutical companies and the UK government over drug pricing and patient access to new treatments. UK ministers agreed in December to spend billions of pounds a year extra on medicines supplied to the NHS after pressure from Donald Trump, who argued that high US drug prices were subsidising lower prices elsewhere.