| Abstract: | The purpose of this paper is to develop the debate about a symbiotic approach to industrial policy with respect to the pharmaceutical industry in the EU. The EU has an increasingly important role to play in European markets but it seems, at best, to be following a fragmented industrial strategy. There is a real and growing danger that this strategy becomes worse for everyone than no strategy at all. Thus the EU can either go for a comprehensive and comprehensible strategy or let the industry fend for itself amongst disparate health care systems amongst member states. Alternatively it can continue to stumble along with a pastiche of policies. There are signs of some debate about a more holistic approach to industry. In the European Union for example DG (Directorate General) V and DG III produced a communication arguing that “the European Union] Community policy in favour of the pharmaceutical industry must take notice of the] twofold context of public health and social security” (Com(93)718:3). This paper identifies current fragments of EU pharmaceutical industrial policy and indicates what a social-symbiotic approach is. Whether or not the industry in the EU continues to decline with respect to the industry elsewhere Asia and America in particular, the sick people of the EU will still need medication: a symbiotic approach to industrial policy can help stem the relative decline in the EU and indeed could reverse it. |
