Price controls seen as key to Europe's drug innovation lag

[Religious Dick]

News and Analysis

Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 6, 257-258 (April 2007) | doi:10.1038/nrd2293

Price controls seen as key to Europe's drug innovation lag
Peter Mitchell1

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Abstract
Pharmaceutical innovation is not only occurring faster in the United States than in Europe, but the gap is getting wider.


For those hoping that Europe might be redressing the imbalance in R&D innovation compared with the United States, two recent reports make gloomy reading. According to a competitiveness report published in November 2006 by the European Commission's high-level Pharmaceutical Forum, the US has established itself firmly as the key innovator in pharmaceuticals since 2000. "That dominant position continues to expand... a disproportionate share of pharmaceutical R&D is performed in the US," it laments.

The discouraging conclusion for European R&D is backed up by Kenneth Kaitin, Director of the Boston-based Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, which released a study on drug approval times and new drug availability in Europe and the US earlier this year. He says pharmaceutical companies are increasingly submitting their new drug applications in the US long before they apply in Europe ? and as a direct result, they are focusing their R&D efforts in the US too.

Of the 71 drugs receiving marketing clearance both in the European Union and the US between 2000 and 2005, 73% (that is, 52 drugs) received approval first from the US FDA (Fig. 1). On average, the FDA approval came 1 year ahead of clearance by the European Medicines Agency (EMEA).

Complete article at Nature

[_JS]

So it isn't that American companies are making better medicines, it is that the FDA approves drugs more quickly now than the EU equivalent.

Big deal.

[Religious Dick]

So it isn't that American companies are making better medicines, it is that the FDA approves drugs more quickly now than the EU equivalent.

Big deal.

Maybe you ought to try reading the rest of the article before commenting on it:

Nor was this 'drug gap' due to faster FDA processing: both agencies have an identical mean approval time of 15.7 months. Instead, said Kaitin, drugs hit the US market first because the sponsors choose to submit them there first.

[_JS]

So they submit them here first.

That's even less impressive.

[Religious Dick]

So they submit them here first.

That's even less impressive.

And you obviously still haven't read the fucking article.

Less impressive still!

[kimba1]

lag??

isn`t viagra from ireland?

[Lanya]

Lag?
One of my meds was developed in Belgium.

http://www.ucb.be/

[Religious Dick]

Lag?
One of my meds was developed in Belgium.

http://www.ucb.be/

I don't see where anyone said Europe develops no drugs, simply that it lags behind the US significantly.

Note, this article doesn't come from some political rag, but from one of the most respected scientific journals published in the English language.

[The_Professor]

I believe what RD is saying is that ya'll are misisng a major point, namely that it is the very presence of price controls that is causing this lag, thereby hurting the average European.

[Plane]

I beleive what RD is saying is that ya'll are misisng a mjaor point, namely that it is the very presence of price contolrs that is causing this lag, tthereby hurting the average European.

The Advradge European can get the drugs developed in the US for less than the advradge American can.

The real problem is the unseen one , that here would be fewer drugs developed in total ,if all the world ran on the European model.

After one makes this diffrence , how can one prove that te rate of development ,R&D and testing has fallen ?

[Lanya]

From the article:

A slackening of price controls in Europe seems unlikely in the current environment. But, according to Kaitin, pricing reform might indeed be Europe's best hope ? if it happens in the US, where Congress is scheduled to renew the relevant legislation this October.

"There is increasing pressure on the US government to introduce drug price controls," he says, "if that happens, it could balance the playing field."

[The_Professor]

Why do I care about balancing the playing field? Price controls might mean that less drugs get produced here or the ones that do might have longer development times. If the average European suffers from this lag, then he/she needs to address THAT with their government which is so dang concerned about controlling so much of their lives.

[_JS]

Why do I care about balancing the playing field? Price controls might mean that less drugs get produced here or the ones that do might have longer development times. If the average European suffers from this lag, then he/she needs to address THAT with their government which is so dang concerned about controlling so much of their lives.

LOL

Do you really think that the typical European lives so much differently than an American in terms of freedom?

[Plane]

Why do I care about balancing the playing field? Price controls might mean that less drugs get produced here or the ones that do might have longer development times. If the average European suffers from this lag, then he/she needs to address THAT with their government which is so dang concerned about controlling so much of their lives.

LOL

Do you really think that the typical European lives so much differently than an American in terms of freedom?

Yes , I have been there and I didn't stay.

[_JS]

How do you think they live?