Industry leaders in Europe warn that if the U.S. continues to sign more deals with companies — designed to drive down prices for American citizens while boosting U.S. investments — European patients will feel the effects.
Since the most-favored nation policy will see Washington copy some EU countries’ prices, companies are opting not to launch new drugs in Europe to maintain higher prices in the U.S. where they can make bigger profits. In addition, companies are increasingly choosing America for research and manufacturing.
“Companies may hesitate to launch in Europe or in Japan or Canada if they think that the price in Europe or Japan or Canada will be lower than the price they could obtain in the U.S.,” Adrian van den Hoven, director general of Medicines for Europe, told POLITICO. “That’s the risk for Europe going forward.” Medicines for Europe represents the generics industry, which largely makes cheaper off-patent medicines. Two large generics firms that also make branded drugs were included in the nine new deals.
Meanwhile, Europe’s current biggest offering to entice industry to stay local — a proposed patent extension for certain biotech drugs — is too little too late, some argue. Industry says the patent extension comes with too many conditions and it won’t come into effect in time to stop the sector from pivoting more to America where market conditions are more favorable.
The patent extension and other industry perks in the proposed Biotech Act are a step in the right direction, said Alexander Natz, secretary general of the European Confederation of Pharmaceutical Entrepreneurs. But “it’s probably too late if we wait for the Biotech Act” to take effect, likely in a couple of years, he said.
Capturing more companies
The latest deals mark a shift away from the previous 17 deals with multi-billion dollar big pharmaceutical companies and include a mix from small specialist firms with only a handful of licensed drugs to vast generic drugmakers.