LDN - Health and Fitness

Companies struggle to get new medicines adopted across Europe

[September 08, 2015] By Ben Hirschler

LONDON (Reuters) - Pharmaceutical companies, currently enjoying a bumper wave of new drug launches, are struggling to get recently introduced products adopted in key European markets as governments bear down on costs.

While a number countries have pledged in recent years to encourage the use of innovative medicines, Europe remains a much tougher market than the United States, prompting many companies to offer significant price discounts.

Global new drug launches hit a 17-year high of 46 last year, up from 29 in 2013, and the high pace of approvals has continued in 2015, but getting these products prescribed to large groups of patients is easier said than done.

In the latest run-in, the drugs industry complained on Monday that British patients were frequently not being offered new drugs, despite a scheme launched last year under which manufacturers underwrite the medicines bill.

Companies contributed 416 million pounds ($634 million) to the cost of using branded medicines on the state health service in the first half of 2015 and the figure is expected to reach 800 million for the full year, up from 310 million in 2014.

But the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry said it was "deeply concerned" that growth in medicines use had slowed to just 2.4 percent in the second quarter of 2015, half the rate seen in 2014.

Cancer drugs are a particular flashpoint. While British cost-effectiveness experts gave an accelerated green light to Merck's new cancer treatment Keytruda on Monday, after the U.S. company offered a price discount, this followed the de-listing of several other medicines last week.

CHEAPER ALTERNATIVES

In Germany, Europe's biggest market, cost arguments are an ongoing hurdle for many new products, as highlighted in July when Novo Nordisk opted to stop selling its new long-acting insulin drug Tresiba there.

The Danish group said that accepting the low price demanded by Germany would have undermined its ability to invest in new medicines.

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Faced with such pressures, many drugs are routinely launched at lower prices in Europe than in the United States. Amgen this month launched its closely watched cholesterol drug Repatha at just 50 to 60 percent of the U.S. price.

European healthcare providers are also pushing hard for the use of cheap alternatives, where available, including copycat versions of injectable biotechnology drugs, or biosimilars.

France and Italy are also encouraging the use of a cut-price eye treatment, even though the drug concerned has never been explicitly licensed for the eyes.

The eye drug row moved up a gear last week when an industry group filed a complaint with the European Commission against a French law promoting the use of Roche's cancer drug Avastin as a cheap alternative to specialist eye medicines like Novartis' Lucentis and Bayer's Eylea.

(Editing by David Holmes)

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