From payback to dependence on India and China: 'We will defend the made-in-Italy drug'

"Mitigating the payback" that pharmaceutical companies pay to make our country more attractive and working to stop being "dependent on China and India" on active ingredients and excipients, the precious raw materials from which drugs are produced, with Italia among the leading countries in production but too exposed on supplies from abroad. In order to improve access to medicines in Italia, "we need to intervene on legislative governance to provide a clear framework, and with the Testo Unico sulla legislazione farmaceutica we want to define all of this," assures Health Undersecretary Marcello Gemmato during the 'Dialogues on Accessible Innovation - Innovaction' meeting, promoted by Gsk and Adnkronos in Rome and held under the patronage of Farmindustria and dedicated to innovation in the health sector. 'The intention,' assures Gemmato, 'is to secure our extraordinary drug supply chain, which has grown, we are first in the EU. If we defend this sector, we defend the right to health of citizens that we can treat well and better'.

The 'deadline' for approving the Consolidated Text on Pharmaceutical Legislation now before Parliament is December 2026, the deadline by which the implementing decrees must be approved, which will have to redesign the governance of pharmaceuticals by intervening, among other things, on the payback that companies pay and the attraction of investments. "We are currently in the phase of hearing stakeholders in the Senate and then the delegation will pass to the House. We are on schedule and then there will be the implementing decrees,' warns Undersecretary Gemmato. 'In the Testo Unico there will be several things, for example 80 per cent of the active ingredients used to make life-saving drugs are now produced in China and India. If we were to have a diplomatic incident,' Gemmato speculates, 'with these countries, or if they were to banish active ingredients to Italia, we would have a few weeks to treat Italians and then we would be left without drugs. We are getting used to the fact that wars are also fought by exploiting energy; in geopolitical terms, pharmaceuticals are an area to be defended, and our government is proposing precisely to reappropriate this sector where Italia has a great history. We want to ensure that not only the last line of the preparation of complex drugs takes place in Italia, but also the production of active ingredients and excipients'.

Making innovation accessible is not just a health choice: it is an economic, industrial and geopolitical lever, according to one of the messages that emerged from the event promoted by Adnkronos and Gsk, In Europe, the health economy - reports a note - generates 1.5 trillion euro of added value and contributes 3.3% of the continent's GDP. On the innovation front, pharmaceutical spending on Research & Development reaches €55 billion, with Europe among the main investment poles: the United Kingdom (€10.2 billion), Germany (€9.9 billion), Switzerland (€9.2 billion) and Italia (€2.0 billion). In this scenario, Italia confirms itself as a leading player: it is second in Europe after Germany, with 411 companies and 56 billion in production value, and an overall employment impact of 950,000 employees. A sector, therefore, that does not only concern healthcare: it concerns the country's development trajectory. Also because - as recalled during the conference - 1 euro invested in health generates between 2 and 4 euros of return in GDP: investing in health means investing in the Country System.

"Considering also the ageing of our population, from the point of view of the National Health System the greatest urgency is to find resources for innovation. In fact, this is what we have done from the very beginning' as a ministry 'by setting a record for the National Health Fund, in these 3 years, especially with the last budget law. But resources alone are not enough, they need to be accompanied by organisational and management models that allow them to be allocated to real needs,' emphasises Francesco Saverio Mennini, head of the Department of Planning, Medical Devices, Drugs and Policies in Favour of the NHS, Ministry of Health. "For the Ministry of Health, but above all for our country, prevention is a fundamental asset," emphasises Mennini. "A good part of these resources we have used to increase, for the first time since the birth of the National Health System, the mandatory quota to be allocated to prevention in each region. With this in mind, and also to ensure greater investment,' he continues, 'we are proposing, together with the MEF, just as other countries have done, that some items of expenditure be transformed into investment. The main ones? Prevention, immunisation, advanced therapies. We hope they will also be accepted at European accounting level, thus allowing us to free up important resources that we can allocate, always in the interest of patients, within the healthcare system,' he concludes.