Pharmaceutical Executive Europe - November/December 2007 - (Page 17) Pharmaceutical Executive Europe Nov/Dec 2007 Brussels Report 17 the Council [that is, EU member state ministers] to swiftly agree on the first proposals for… the Innovative Medicines Initiative.” Ministers finally got round to what they call “an exchange of views” on the subject in September, but on their own admission the debate looked only at the broader policy elements, “with a view to adopting final decisions at the November Competitiveness Council meeting.” If they manage that, they hope that there can be “a swift start” in 2008. But the European Parliament has to agree too. And things are moving slowly there. At the Parliament, the health committee has started examining the project, and Dagmar Behrendt, the German MEP it has put in charge of the discussions, has swallowed the rhetoric hook, line and sinker. She welcomes it on the grounds that it will “speed up the development of innovative medicines.” Acknowledging what everyone in the drug industry already knows — that investment in biopharmaceutical research in Europe is losing pace compared with “other parts of the world like the US or Japan,” she concludes that the initiative “starts from the right point by using public and private money to boost large-scale pan-European research in order to identify at the earliest possible stage whether a medicine candidate has the potential to become a safe and effective cure and to foster the collaboration between industry, academia and the non-profit sector for the benefit of society as a whole.” To some extent, maybe. But there are plenty of flaws in the glib assumption that getting everyone to work together will automatically boost innovation. One of the principal problems now emerging with the initiative is the thorny question of who owns what when everyone claims to have invented it. The concept of Big Pharma throwing its resources into a pot with everyone else is attractive if Big Pharma is going to profit from it. But if Big Pharma is just paying, and everyone else is profiting without paying, the concept isn’t necessarily a surefire success. Some tricky issues on intellectual property rights will have to be resolved before Big Pharma is ready to sign up. This is one of the reasons that the discussions in another European Parliament committee haven’t even started yet. The Parliament’s industry committee has been given the principal responsibility for drafting a view on the proposal, and the MEP that is supposed to be drafting an opinion for it hasn’t even come up with a basic working document yet — effectively killing off the chances of the Parliament sticking to its schedule of a final vote on the project in November (as Pharm Exec Europe went to print). In any case, the tone of the Parliamentary debate is indicated by early calls for attention to such central questions as assuring full parliamentary representation in the governing body to be set up for the project, ensuring that full attention is paid to such innovative areas as herbal medicines and home remedies, and giving the public the biggest role possible in decision-making and discoveries. This curious project has a plaintive, almost desperate air to it. The European pharmaceutical industry has signed up to it, and pays occasional lip-service to it — but it is hard to escape the conclusion that the industry finds itself virtually obliged to show willing with many of these grand schemes simply to avoid the political suicide of displaying open hostility or even contempt for the officials and politicians it is condemned to work with on so many issues day-to-day. (The industry’s evident impatience with the European Pharmaceutical Forum — to which this column has alluded in the past — is a powerful example of this phenomenon of industry as a hostage.) The most telling indication of this desperation is an extraordinary section on the website that has been created to publicise the initiative. “How can I help IMI?,” it asks, and goes on to plead: “If you believe the implementation of IMI will contribute to the future health and wealth of European citizens, please help us to get IMI approved by the European institutions by communicating about the advantages of IMI for you.” This must surely qualify for some sort of prize as one of the most naïve attempts ever to mobilize and manipulate public opinion. It’s clear that even at its most elevated levels, Europe still has a lot to learn about developing medicines. ■
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