European pharmaceutical bosses have called on the EU to increase drug prices towards the much higher levels paid by the US, saying it will encourage innovation.
In a letter to the Financial Times, Novartis chief executive Vas Narasimhan and Paul Hudson, his counterpart at Sanofi, say the European Commission should set a spending target for medicines and vaccines to “fairly reward innovation”.
The US pays nearly three times as much for branded and generic medicines as other comparable countries, according to US government estimates. The commission should create a benchmark for its member states “in the range of US net prices”, the chief executives say in their letter, adding that this could be adjusted though rebates for some countries.