Multinational pharmaceutical companies operate on the basis of increasingly stringent planning (strategic, annual and monthly) and any context-level uncertainty can divert a new production initiative to countries deemed more reliable and efficient.
31 December 2014 – Il Sole 24 ORE
On numerous occasions, even in recent times, we have heard flattering comments about the national pharmaceutical industry. Politicians, opinion leaders, commentators have underlined the good results of companies in the sector and someone has gone so far as to define our country as the Pharma valley of Europe.
Such enthusiasm can certainly be shared and makes us who work in the sector proud. The pharmaceutical industry certainly represents a strategic sector for Italy as well as for research and development also for its manufacturing activity (we are the second producer in Europe by production value with over 70% of exports) and we have seen the value of pharmaceutical production to reach 27.6 billion euros in 2013, recording an average growth in the last ten years of more than 3%.
However, the good health of the sector is today seriously threatened by some structural elements linked to the functioning dynamics of Italy. In particular, the conquest of further shares in pharmaceutical production depends on an adequate level of competitiveness of our companies which operate in an increasingly global market. In this dimension, our country has several elements of weakness: bureaucratic inefficiency, high tax burden and instability of the regulatory framework erode part of the competitive advantage acquired by the country in recent years.
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The author is President and CEO of Kedrion Biopharma
