Euro drug companies plan R&D cooperation
met this week to agree a framework for working together on research
in a bid to make the European industry more competitive.
The meeting brought together the European heads of research of a dozen leading pharmaceutical companies operating in Europe, as well as representatives of the European Commission, the World Health Organisation and the Dutch government, which is holding the Presidency of the EU Council as of 1 July 2004.
"The biotech revolution means that our understanding of how the human body works, at its most fundamental molecular level, is increasing at an incredible rate," said Roche's Jonathan Knowles, newly elected chairman of the Research Directors Group (RDG) of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA).
While this is opening up whole new avenues of treatment that could only be dreamed of 10 years ago, the difficulty lies in making use of this knowledge by turning it into really effective treatments for European patients, he added.
This initiative is in line with the EU Lisbon strategy and Barcelona objective of investing 3 per cent of Europe's GDP into research to turn Europe into the most competitive knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010.
