Recent legal and policy developments affecting the EU pharmaceutical business environment

Aims to identify and explore recent legal and policy developments affecting the EU pharmaceutical business environment. Areas addressed are: the declaration of industry policy from the European Commission and the MEPs’ recent response to this, drug licensing, member state trade in pharmaceuticals, price and profit controls, and state aid. States none of these areas are quite so mutually exclusive, and that there is more to the EU pharmaceutical industry than just the drugs it provides and while there is a growing trend towards a single EU market in pharmaceuticals it is highly unlikely that a single market will be achieved in the next decade. Argues that EU policies must facilitate a strong, profitable, pharmaceutical industry. Regardless of how successful the EU pharmaceutical industry is, it is still behind the USA and looks likely to remain so. The EU as a pharmaceutical area is beginning to be eclipsed by newly‐emerging areas in the Fast East and whether or not EU governments have formal, explicit pharmaceutical industry policy, these governments will still affect the pharmaceutical environment. Concludes that the fundamental questions of any industrial policy must be carefully addressed.