Industry/ministerial group still trying to encourage pharmaceutical investment
Government ministers and pharmaceutical industry leaders are pressing
on with an initiative to try to increase pharmaceutical investment in the UK (PJ, 14 April 2001, p498).
On the day of their latest meeting last week, Jane Kennedy, minister
for health and co-chair of the Ministerial Industry Strategy Group said: “The
Government wants the UK to maintain its position as a leading country
for the pharmaceutical industry to develop medicines. We see from taskforce
indicators that the UK attracts 9 per cent of world pharmaceutical industry
research and development expenditure, while it has less than 4 per cent
of the global market for medicines. We want to improve even further on
this.”
Ms Kennedy added that she wanted to see concrete proposals to maintain
the UK’s position as leader in developing new medicines when the
group meets again in November.
The next stage of the group’s work will look at improving the rate
at which effective new treatments are made available to NHS patients,
facilitating joint working between the NHS and the pharmaceutical industry
and new ways of introducing new medicines and ensuring the safety of
medicines that are already licensed, while maintaining patient access
to innovative medicines.
It will also develop proposals to help achieve the aims of the European
Commission’s Pharmaceutical Forum to make Europe a more attractive
location for pharmaceutical company investment.
Last week, the Government also urged the pharmaceutical industry, the
public sector and non-governmental organisations to develop new affordable
treatments for children with HIV and AIDS. The Department for International
Development said that although the price of antiretroviral drugs has
been
dramatically reduced in recent years, paediatric ARVs can cost more than
six times as much as adult doses and are often harder to handle in terms
of storage and distribution.
International development minister Gareth Thomas commented: “While
pharmaceutical companies have done much to help improve access to treatment
for HIV, more
effort must be made to help provide effective and affordable treatment
for children— especially for those in developing countries.” |
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