American policy formulators must take note since biopharmaceutical companies withdraw investments in the United Kingdom, Eli Lilly Executive director Dave Ricks said in an interview with CNBC.
Lilly recently paused to create a biotechnology incubator called Gateway Labs in the United Kingdom, joining other biofarma companies that have put investments in the country waiting in the midst of concerns about the prices of medicines and other policies in the United Kingdom, the country controls the price of brand medicines in some ways, even demanding that companies pay a recess if the expenses of the government In brand drugs. This year's rate of approximately 23% was higher than expected, which caused a generalized decline of the industry.
“The United Kingdom has been on a long and slow sliding path of a biopharmaceutical leader really lag, and that has happened in the last 20 years through several policy errors,” Ricks said. “The most important thing is that its market is really unattractive to us, and it has become more unattractive every year.”
“Then, in the context of a global competence for resources, the global competition for investments, they qualify quite badly, and that is despite a solid academic and scientific base there,” he added during an interview about a pharmaceutical manufacturing plant of $ 5 billion that Lilly is building in Virginia.
Ricks said Lilly had been in conversations with the United Kingdom's political leaders about changes around intellectual property and regulation, but stopped those discussions while waiting for a political response from the British government. He said that negotiations between the United States and the United Kingdom in a commercial agreement can “lose things”, but until the situation changes, it is “quite difficult” to consider investing there.
“I think that is a message for our country, or any other, that capital goes to where it is desired, where there are benefits to invest. And at this time, that is really the United Kingdom,” he said.
The United Kingdom and other European countries for years have prioritized control of the cost of medicines. American legislators recently gave him the ability to negotiate the prices of medicines for the first time, and President Donald Trump wants to go even further, floating ideas such as linking the price of drugs in the US. UU. To the rate paid by similar countries. Meanwhile, Trump is looking at tariffs on pharmaceutical products in a movement that would fly decades of precedents that exempt drug medications.
Trump wants European countries to pay more for medicines and that the United States pays less. Pharmaceutical companies such as Lilly have said they agree with that goal, but it is not clear how they will achieve it. European companies have “dominated the art of keeping prices low”, which will make it difficult to increase prices abroad, Ricks said.
“I think it is difficult to be honest, and that is why we need the government ambassador and the commercial relationship of the United States, as well as the Department of Commerce and everyone else to help us,” Ricks said. “If we don't have a market abroad, I think it's an important problem.”
“I think the administration has talked about the objectives of its price policy is to increase prices in developed countries and reduce it in the United States,” he added. “And conceptually, we are for that, but we need to see the facts about the change of land in Europe. Until now, they have not done so, and the United Kingdom is an excellent example of that.”
Lilly recently increased the price of Mounjaro in the United Kingdom in the private market. Ricks said it will be “somewhat lower” for Lilly's business, since these sales are not a large part of global revenues, but pointed it out as an example of where the United Kingdom is staying behind. The country only covers the drug of obesity in limited circumstances, which means that most people who are taking it to lose weight are paying from their pocket.
“All this is part of the problem that the new expensive medications are not listed or await three, four, sometimes five years, and then their patent is almost expired. Therefore, these are the types of things that we need help from our government to change,” Ricks said. “In the US, we launch a new product, it is available the next day. That is not the case in Europe, and that type of pressure on companies is one of the reasons why people can see the lowest prices along with those systems driven by the government that I spoke.”
