Drugmakers sound alarm on Europe's decline

Europe's largest drugmakers have issued an urgent warning that the continent faces a "slow agony" of decline unless it can compete with its global rivals for medical research investment.

The United Kingdom's AstraZeneca and GSK, along with European mainland rivals Novo Nordisk, Sanofi, Roche, and Novartis, were among nine signatories — along with Boehringer Ingelheim, Chiesi, and Ipsen — on an open letter published on Tuesday that warns they were "losing ground to global competition".

The letter, titled Europe Is Losing the Pharma Investment Race — But the Comeback Is Within Reach, was published on the companies' websites and addressed to European policymakers.

"The pharmaceutical sector is one of our continent's great post-war achievements," the letter said. "But this hard-won inheritance is at risk. European governments must create conditions that attract investment in next-generation medicines before it's too late."

Europe's share of global pharmaceutical research and development has fallen to 31 percent after having been 43 percent in 1990, according to the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations, or EFPIA.

The pharmaceutical companies pointed to more than $600 billion in investment announced in the United States and China during the past two years as evidence that Europe is being left behind.

"Outdated systems constrain the use of innovative medicines, arbitrarily cap budgets, and fail to adjust spending for inflation despite rising patient need," the letter said. "Government policies send a powerful signal about how innovation is valued and the priority placed on ensuring that patients can access it."

Last year, 49 percent of newly approved therapies failed to reach European patients, up from 46

percent in 2019, according to data from the EFPIA. Those that do arrive take nearly 600 days on average — though this varies widely by country, from a median of 56 days in Germany to 1,201 days in Romania. The EFPIA attributes the delays to slow regulatory processes and insufficient budgets in some European countries.

In their letter, the companies called for a series of reforms to reverse the decline, including faster clinical trials, greater fiscal flexibility for health spending, and stronger intellectual-property protection. They also urged governments to treat medicines as "strategic infrastructure", rather than simply a cost item on national budgets.

The letter concluded: "Europe's story does not have to be one of decline and dependency; it can be one of renewal and resilience. That choice belongs to national leaders and all of us as citizens."

The pharmaceutical industry employs hundreds of thousands of workers across Europe and is a major contributor to exports and research spending. The sector invested an estimated 60 billion euros ($68.5 billion) in research and development in 2025, according to the EFPIA.