In international comparison, Germany falls behind in pharmaceutical research.
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Frankfurt In an international comparison, Germany is losing ground as a pharmaceutical research location. This concern has been driving innovative pharmaceutical companies for a long time.
A new study by the strategy consultancy Kearney in cooperation with the Association of Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies (VFA) shows how seriously the industry assesses the situation. According to this, around 70 percent of the pharmaceutical companies surveyed currently assume that Germany will become less important as a research and development location.
For many years, Germany was number two in the world behind the USA and number one in Europe in terms of the number of clinical studies. In the meantime, not only China has overtaken Germany as a place to study, more and more countries in Europe are also moving away.
In their joint study, the VFA and Kearney show how Germany is being overtaken by countries such as Spain and Denmark as a place to study in Europe, because the implementation of studies in this country is slowed down by too much bureaucracy, slow processes and a lack of access to health data.
In 2021, only 33 studies per million inhabitants took place in Germany. And only about 1,500 people per million people were taking part in clinical trials in 2021. Denmark was top in both categories. There, 192 studies per million inhabitants were carried out. And for every million inhabitants, 29,311 people took part in clinical trials.
Germany’s declining attractiveness became apparent at the beginning of the year. At that time, the Mainz-based company Biontech had announced a multi-year research cooperation with the British government.
The decision to go to Great Britain was deliberate because the relevant health data is available there. The National Health Service, research institutes, regulatory authorities and the private sector are working closely together on the island, Biontech explained.
“It is in everyone’s interest to make Germany strong again as a location for pharmaceutical innovation,” says Marc P. Philipp, partner and managing director at Kearney. Specialists in clinics and medical practices would familiarize themselves with the medicine of tomorrow through clinical research today.
The research gave patients additional opportunities for effective treatment and the best care. And companies could get new drugs approved more quickly.
VFA and Kearney have concrete recommendations for action on how countermeasures can be taken: particular attention is paid to increasing the speed of clinical studies. Because today in Germany it can take nine to ten months for the contract for a clinical study to be signed between the sponsor and the center carrying it out, while in other European countries it takes less than half the time, even in the longest cases.
harmonization of requirements
Acceleration can be achieved, for example, by harmonizing the requirements of the various ethics committees at federal and state level, as well as the data protection guidelines for clinical studies. In the opinion of the authors, responsibility should be bundled with a federal authority, for example, in order to ensure the application of uniform federal regulations.
“The innovation location can be strengthened if research can be carried out at a competitive pace again,” says Matthias Meergans, Managing Director of Research & Development at the industry association VFA. A look at other countries could help Germany: France has improved the conditions for clinical research by introducing model contracts as a starting point for contract negotiations between pharmaceutical companies and clinics. And Denmark enables innovative – also digitally supported – study models and specifically motivates people to participate in studies.
Access to health data is also a major issue. Other countries such as Great Britain, Israel and France have already built up large research databases.
For Germany, the authors of the study call for a targeted development of registers that enable the centralized processing of health data for research purposes. In addition, the federal government’s digitization plans, such as the introduction of the electronic health record, should now be quickly incorporated into legislation.
According to the authors of the study, improving the research situation requires an overall strategy that goes beyond a detailed discussion of individual measures, and a bundling of the forces of politics, academic research institutions and industry.
According to the authors of the study, Germany must finally wake up from its slumber and achieve a new “Germany speed”. In order for patients to continue to benefit from medical innovation in the future, more dynamics and interdisciplinary cooperation are required.
More: Pharmaceutical research: What Germany can learn from the USA