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Gold/Mining/Energy : Nuvo Research Inc -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ron Nairn who wrote (7986)	11/6/2001 9:53:29 PM
From: Montana Wildhack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14101

Nice work Rondo. I saw that on SH. Also, I'm copying an article Mark found and posted there which is interesting to DMX'rs. Pfizer attacks European drug hurdles LONDON, Nov 5 (Reuters) - The world's largest drugs company, Pfizer Inc, warned European governments on Monday that attempts to limit the use and price of new medicines threatened the survival of the pharmaceutical industry in Europe. ``In the 1980s, Europe was known as the world's medicine chest. At present, does anyone still believe this?'' Chairman and Chief Executive Hank McKinnell asked delegates at a Financial Times pharmaceutical conference. Companies were increasingly setting up in the United States rather than in Europe, with investment in pharmaceutical research increasing tenfold in the U.S. since 1980, he said. There are now 300 major biotechnology firms in the U.S., the largest of which -- Amgen Inc (NasdaqNM:AMGN - news) -- is bigger than the entire biotech sector in Europe. McKinnell said companies chose to locate in the U.S. because potential return on capital is higher as a result of free-market pricing and the possibility of fast-track drug approvals. By contrast in many European countries, they had to negotiate for months or even years on price before licensed products could be launched. He urged European governments to improve access to innovative new products and stop reimbursing old products of marginal medical value. He said they should also stop ``reference pricing'' -- the practice often used in Germany of setting the price of new products according to the price of old products. McKinnell also called for the removal of artificial price supports for generic drugs and an end to parallel trade in medicines between European countries -- a system he said benefited middlemen and created risks to patients. Governments should also end ``silo budgeting'' -- the practice of considering drug costs in isolation without looking at how innovative products could reduce other healthcare costs. McKinnell said companies already faced the problem of soaring research and development expenditure coupled with little increase in R&D output -- issues which were ``even more complex in the face of an almost singular focus by governments to lower or limit pharmaceutical usage''. He stressed that pharmaceutical R&D was a high-risk activity. Pfizer is investing five billion euros ($4.5 billion) this year -- yet only one out of every 100 projects make it to market, he said. ``High-risk business cannot survive if they cannot aim for high rewards.'' Fred Hassan, chairman and chief executive officer of Pharmacia Corp (NYSE:PHA - news), also called for changes in laws, regulations and other incentives to revitalise the European industry. Although he was not present at the meeting, he called in a paper for integrated healthcare budgets, more attractive tax regimes for biotech companies, and an end to ``cost-based bureaucratic criteria that seriously delay or inhibit access to new drugs''. Otherwise, he suggested that some of Europe's top pharma companies might have to leave the old continent to remain globally competitive. Must be nice to have that kind of clout.