In a recent press conference, the French pharmaceutical industry body (LEEM, www.leem.org) presented its assessment of drug-based medical progress in 2005. Pierre Le Sourd MD (LEEM President and CEO of Bristol-Myers-Squibb France) highlighted 46 clinical situations where new drugs have contributed to the meeting of medical needs in 2005 - particularly in the fields of cancer, orphan diseases, rheumatology and vaccines.
The LEEM report's findings were based in part on decisions made by the French Government's Transparency Commission which judges the "medical service rendered" ("ASMR", analogous to the meeting of previously unmet medical needs) by a given therapeutic. It awards a rating on a scale from I (major progress) to IV (minor progress). The assessment is taken into account in subsequent reimbursement decisions and for deciding public hospital purchasing policies.
In all, 24 new products were made available to patients, together with 19 indication extensions. Encouragingly, biotech-derived drugs were highly prominent in the report, showing that France is increasingly recognising the value of biologicals. Not surprisingly, US biopharma companies were well represented, with notably Genzyme, Amgen, Wyeth, Baxter and Abbott, alongside historically Europe-based firms like GSK and Serono. Of the 46 instances of therapeutic progress, 21 were ascribed to biologicals - a major increase on previous years, suggesting that France is not going to buck the global trend towards biotech drugs and personalized medicine.
Not surprisingly, cancer was the most represented field, with 10 new ASMRs granted in 2005 for both common cancers (prostate, breast) and rare cancers (pleural mesothelioma), where the unsurpassed specificity of monoclonals generally delivers significant or major benefits. Indeed, increasing clinical knowledge of the use of monoclonals has led to their extension to other indications. On a less upbeat note, there was an obvious lack of progress in treatment of degenerative neurological diseases.
Pierre Le Sourd concluded the presentation by calling on the French government to further boost its support for innovation. He also proposed an Europe-wide "innovative medicine initiative" to put life science fairly and squarely at the heart of European competitiveness and the knowledge economy.
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