A survey of EFPIA member companies conducted last week – to which 18 international large and medium-sized innovative companies responded - identified as much as 85% of capital expenditure investments (approximately €50.6 billion) and as much as 50% of R&D expenditure (approximately €52.6 billion) potentially at risk…
The US now leads Europe on every investor metric from availability of capital, intellectual property, speed of approval to rewards for innovation. In addition to the uncertainty created by the threat of tariffs, there is little incentive to invest in the EU and significant drivers to relocate to the US.
It would be nice if you have some data to support that. From another industry…
“Europe’s competitiveness is increasingly suffering from overregulation, slow and bureaucratic permitting processes, and in particular, high costs for most production input factors,” said Martin Brudermüller, the BASF chief executive.
Mario Draghi recently put out a report on EU competitiveness, making the case that growth and competitiveness are fading in Europe.
For example, he writes “there is no EU company with a market capitalisation over EUR 100 billion that has been set up from scratch in the last fifty years, while all six US companies with a valuation above EUR 1 trillion have been created in this period.”
So, what is to be done? According to Draghi, nothing less than a fundamental rethink in how Brussels approaches investment, trade policy and business regulation will dig Europe out of its hole…If, as Draghi believes, the choice facing Europe is radical change or ‘slow agony’, then slow agony is what Europe will get.
I’m pretty sure that a 25%-50% tariff on Pharma imports to the US negates anything Ireland has to offer. Ireland really isn’t offering anything besides tax avoidance to US Pharma companies.