Robert Turn
Twenty-six pharmaceutical companies have been awarded a total prize of 100 million for investments of 1 billion euros made and planned in Italy between production sites, preclinical research and clinical trials. They are Italian companies and foreign majors, including medium and small, traditional and biotech companies. This is the result of the go-ahead granted by the Board of Aifa (pharmaceutical agency) to the "programme contracts" with the drug industries, in the pipeline for the 2006 budget law, to encourage investment and employment in Italy.
A challenge to be won, especially in times of crisis which also continues to make its effects felt in the pharmaceutical sector with cuts in the sector that companies and unions are trying to tackle, if possible, with a common exit strategy. It is no coincidence that yesterday Farmindustria, in commenting with "satisfaction" on the green light from AIFA, immediately relaunched: "The large number and quality of the projects presented are a strong sign of the vitality of drug companies even in a difficult economic situation economy», declared the president Sergio Dompé. But at this point, he added, the program agreements «are an opportunity to be made structural, and not "one-off" as envisaged today, because they represent the right choice to increase the value of the sector, favor its competitiveness and employment levels ».
The 61 program agreements launched by AIFA trigger total investments of 1 billion: the bonus granted is in fact equal to 10% of the single project. But the initial audience of companies that participated in the tender was much wider: 141 projects for total investments calculated at 1.858 billion euros. The prevalence of investments in production sites is very strong (64 projects for 1.013 billion), followed by those for preclinical research (45 projects for 680.921 million) and clinical trials (32 projects for a value of 164.358 million).
This is the initial starting point, which led to a long evaluation phase - complete with indicators to evaluate both the effects in terms of health and the advantages for the NHS, as well as the economic and industrial factors - and therefore to the skimming and to the ratification by the Board of AIFA. Thus, the final split of funding went to 26 companies in total. With the prevalence of projects for investments in preclinical research (33 projects for 57.9 million), in production sites (11 projects for 32.7 million) then in clinical trials (17 projects for 9.2 million). Menarini and Kedrion (7 projects each), Chiesi (5), Merck Serono and Novartis vaccines and diagnostics (4 each) are the companies with which the most contracts will be signed. The highest awards recognized for each project go to GlaxoSmithKline (23.69 million for preclinical research) and Bracco imaging (12.35 million for a production site).
Il Sole 24 Ore of 01/11/2008 ECONOMY AND BUSINESS p. 26
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