Italy confirms its importance for the pharmaceutical sector: it occupies fifth place in the world in terms of turnover (equal to 3.4% of the total) and, with 340 companies operating in the country, it ranks second in Europe. Investments, in 2006, exceeded one billion euros, with an increase of 4.4% compared to 2005. And exports also continue to grow: 11.8 billion of medicines, basic substances and other products, with an export increased tenfold from the early 1990s to today. Yet Italy fails to attract foreign investment: only 128 billion dollars have been invested in the last ten years. A figure which, although not negligible, places Italy in eleventh position for attractiveness among the 30 OECD countries, very far from France, Great Britain and Germany, at the top of the rankings. These data come from the Report that Nomisma dedicated to the pharmaceutical sector and its relationship with the "country system", which was presented in Rome, in a meeting-debate organized by GlaxoSmithKline to celebrate its 75 years of activity in Italy (The sector pharmaceutical industry and the country system: contributions and needs for sustainable development. Rome, 14 December 2007). Therefore, the Report not only provides a statistical framework, but also an overall analysis of the sector and the nodes of the system, and some indications for meeting the new global health challenges and guiding the evolution of the industrial systems that they require. To do this, it is necessary to improve the overall conditions of 'doing business', starting from the sharing of risk in research activity between industry, universities and institutions - as explained by Giorgio De Rita, CEO of Nomisma, illustrating the Report - reducing the bureaucracies that often slow down the arrival of a drug on the market, personalize treatments, and enhance the virtuous behavior of drug companies in order to indicate an ideal reference path for the sector that recognizes the companies' efforts for innovation and their contribution to the country's competitiveness. Inevitably, attention has shifted to the 2008 budget package, which enacts several important changes, both directly and through related bills. “The Finance Act presents itself as a balanced and potentially positive maneuver for the pharmaceutical sector, because it testifies that the cost of the drug can be managed, without limiting itself to cutting prices, protecting innovation and offering a stable reference framework. So it promises to give stability to the country's system, a very important element for attracting foreign investments” said Angelos Papadimitriou, president and CEO of GSK. "So far - he added - the Italian system has had drug cost management as a priority, costs that - the manager acknowledges - must undoubtedly be managed, but if we want to talk about development, the latter must represent a priority in government policies" . Papadimitriou however wants to look to the future. “I can say that today we have reached the awareness that medicines are an important industrial asset for the country. And we also know that we will not challenge China on costs. The only possible challenge is on the knowledge economy. Italy knows this well, but also Europe which considers the health sector, potentially, as one of the very few fields of development and export from Europe to the rest of the world. This is because it is an advanced sector in which we have the skills and can be exporters and producers of patents, knowledge and wealth". “Italy is a large market, it has attracted investments over the years which give it technical, scientific skills and an industrial presence, of which GSK is an example
