An eventful week for pharmaceuticals
The company expects to benefit from enforcement of EU standards, which will eliminate from the market competition in the guise of generics whose clinical registrations are considered suspect, said Lek CEO Marco Dolzan. The European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries Association (EFPIA), however, is less optimistic about the future for innovative drug sales in this country. If the government continues to scrimp on funding for innovative drugs, says Brendan Barnes, EU enlargement manager for the EFPIA, not only will patients continue to suffer, but this country will find itself suffering from a brain drain of scientists.
As if to mark Poland's entry to the EU, Slovenien-based Lek's new facility was inaugurated last Thursday by Paul Choffat, CEO of Novartis Consumer Health. However, while a growing proportion of output from the plant is expected to travel abroad to neighboring markets, such as Russia, the Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria, 80 to 90 percent of production is aimed at the domestic market.
Sandoz, which made a net profit of around zł.11.6 billion ($2.9 billion) in 2003, is now, through Lek, number two on the local generics market and number 12 on the total market, and the company plans to increase its market share over the next two years. This will not be easy though. Indeed, one of the company's most direct competitors, generic concern Polpharma (number three on the total market), a private company owned by one of this country's richest citizens, Jerzy Starak, and which also has Eastern European ambitions, reported a net profit of zł.815 million last year.
"Size will be a big issue in the coming years. Smaller companies will have to consolidate in order to survive, not just in terms of production but also distribution," said Dolzan.
He went on to express his expectation that EU entry will benefit the company by bringing in more transparent procedures for drug registration in this country. This is a view echoed, albeit in less cheerful tones, by Barnes, who visited Warsaw last Friday in honor of Polish Pharmaceuticals Day. Referring to the fact that in Poland - uniquely among both old and new EU members - government reimbursement policies have made no new innovative medicines available to citizens during the last five years, he warned that this country's notable unwillingness to fund innovative medicines is likely to cause a sizable proportion of local scientific talent and expertise to exit the country in search of jobs abroad.
Meanwhile, an article recently published in Newsweek, entitled 'The Minister Removes Hope' (referring to Minister Odbiera Nadzieję) pointed out that one generic offered by government refunding policy as a substitute to two original drugs threatens the health of 40,000 citizens. This evoked a curiously emotional response from Adamed, the generic company involved.
"As a Polish firm we are outraged at the article, which presents us in a very bad light," reads the company's press release. "What hurts us is the fact that when a Polish company is successful, people write that we have eaten into the market of a foreign concern."
Seeming to rely on nationalistic sentiments to drum up support, the press release notably skirted two central points: the fact that its drug (which the government had endorsed as an equivalent) has reportedly been ineffective for many patients as a substitute, and the fact that Adamed is currently involved in an intellectual property rights battle regarding the other drug, which means that the government shouldn't be offering it on the reimbursement list at all.
Barnes did not raise this particular issue at the EFPIA conference. Nevertheless he was anxious to stress that in order to improve the state of health care in Poland, "We have to create a dialog at a political level."
As if to mark Poland's entry to the EU, Slovenien-based Lek's new facility was inaugurated last Thursday by Paul Choffat, CEO of Novartis Consumer Health. However, while a growing proportion of output from the plant is expected to travel abroad to neighboring markets, such as Russia, the Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria, 80 to 90 percent of production is aimed at the domestic market.
Sandoz, which made a net profit of around zł.11.6 billion ($2.9 billion) in 2003, is now, through Lek, number two on the local generics market and number 12 on the total market, and the company plans to increase its market share over the next two years. This will not be easy though. Indeed, one of the company's most direct competitors, generic concern Polpharma (number three on the total market), a private company owned by one of this country's richest citizens, Jerzy Starak, and which also has Eastern European ambitions, reported a net profit of zł.815 million last year.
"Size will be a big issue in the coming years. Smaller companies will have to consolidate in order to survive, not just in terms of production but also distribution," said Dolzan.
He went on to express his expectation that EU entry will benefit the company by bringing in more transparent procedures for drug registration in this country. This is a view echoed, albeit in less cheerful tones, by Barnes, who visited Warsaw last Friday in honor of Polish Pharmaceuticals Day. Referring to the fact that in Poland - uniquely among both old and new EU members - government reimbursement policies have made no new innovative medicines available to citizens during the last five years, he warned that this country's notable unwillingness to fund innovative medicines is likely to cause a sizable proportion of local scientific talent and expertise to exit the country in search of jobs abroad.
Meanwhile, an article recently published in Newsweek, entitled 'The Minister Removes Hope' (referring to Minister Odbiera Nadzieję) pointed out that one generic offered by government refunding policy as a substitute to two original drugs threatens the health of 40,000 citizens. This evoked a curiously emotional response from Adamed, the generic company involved.
"As a Polish firm we are outraged at the article, which presents us in a very bad light," reads the company's press release. "What hurts us is the fact that when a Polish company is successful, people write that we have eaten into the market of a foreign concern."
Seeming to rely on nationalistic sentiments to drum up support, the press release notably skirted two central points: the fact that its drug (which the government had endorsed as an equivalent) has reportedly been ineffective for many patients as a substitute, and the fact that Adamed is currently involved in an intellectual property rights battle regarding the other drug, which means that the government shouldn't be offering it on the reimbursement list at all.
Barnes did not raise this particular issue at the EFPIA conference. Nevertheless he was anxious to stress that in order to improve the state of health care in Poland, "We have to create a dialog at a political level."
