But there is hope — both for the pharmaceutical industry and beyond. Per Franzén, CEO and managing partner at EQT, a global investment organization, said he is seeing “an unprecedented interest to invest into Europe.”
“It’s a real window of opportunity, a unique moment in time for Europe,” he said. “In order to make the most out of that opportunity, what we need to do is really to drive a more business-friendly, more innovation-friendly agenda,” he said. But with the pace of change, driven by artificial intelligence, “time is of the essence,” he added.
Over-regulation isn’t holding Europe back in medicines innovation, it’s a lack of substantial incentives for companies to invest in Europe, Oelrich said.
But it doesn’t have to be this way, he said: “We have some of the best universities in the world that publish some of the coolest science in the world. So there is no reason why this wouldn’t work. And we need to get our act together,” he said.
“Instead of trying to complicate our lives and come up with a new bureaucratic idea, we should come up with with ways of how we unleash our forces.”