LES ÉCHOS – This week, the European Commission published its proposal for a Biotech Act, an initiative intended to strengthen research, innovation, and industrial competitiveness in Europe’s biotechnology sector.
A few days earlier, in an op-ed published in French business media Les Échos, Christian Pierret – former French Minister for Industry and SMEs and Member of the LSAA Advisory Board – had already highlighted a persistent structural weakness: the European Union continues to underestimate the scale, duration, and risk of investment required for life sciences innovation.
Developing a new therapy involves long and uncertain cycles – on average ten years of research, close to €1 billion in investment, and thousands of molecules tested before reaching the market. Yet, despite world-class academic research and scientific excellence, this reality is still insufficiently reflected in European public policies.
This structural underinvestment translates into limited long-term funding visibility, a complex regulatory framework, and market conditions that are less attractive than those of Europe’s main competitors. As a result, Europe has lost nearly 60,000 clinical trials in five years, and many innovations originating from European research are now developed or industrialised outside the EU.
In response, LSAA calls for action on three key priorities: ambitious multiannual investment aligned with the realities of innovation, faster and more harmonised regulatory procedures, and market conditions that allow for a fairer valuation of health innovation.
The publication of the Biotech Act marks an important step. The forthcoming discussions should provide an opportunity to strengthen and refine this initiative, ensuring it fully matches Europe’s scientific, industrial, and healthcare ambitions – and enables the continent to translate its excellence in life sciences into sustainable leadership.
👉 Read Christian Pierret’s full op-ed in Les Échos (English translation here).