The latest pharma news from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), including a new report on the disparities between the region’s healthcare systems and those of Western Europe; why US companies are looking to invest in CEE; how Polish vaccine scepticism has benefited Australia; and Hungary’s manufacturing tie-up with Chinese Sinopharm.
Disparities between CEE and EU5 healthcare systems laid bare (PharmaPhorum)
https://pharmaphorum.com/sales-marketing/central-eastern-europe-eu5-health-disparities/
Increasing public spending on healthcare in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) could not only result in healthier populations, it could also improve the region’s economic prosperity.
That’s according to a new report commissioned by the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industry and Associations (EFPIA), which explores the health investment and outcomes. It arrives as COVID has placed front and centre the need for stable, effective healthcare systems.
Big pharma and private equity seek healthy returns in Europe’s east (Reuters)
The pharmaceutical industry focused around Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland is dwarfed by that of nearby Germany, but industry insiders and analysts see scope for growth based on moderate costs and an expectation of higher healthcare spending, as well as a scientifically educated workforce.
For private equity, there is the lure of high returns, while big pharma can reduce costs by buying growing firms that have carried out large amounts of research and the location in the European Union means widely recognised standards are met.
Poland to donate 400,000 AstraZeneca vaccine doses to Taiwan (Express Pharma)
https://www.expresspharma.in/poland-to-donate-400000-astrazeneca-vaccine-doses-to-taiwan/
Poland will donate 400,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to Taiwan, the foreign ministry in Warsaw said recently, to help boost vaccination rates in the country.
While a relatively small domestic coronavirus outbreak is well under control in Taiwan, only around five per cent of its 23.5 million population are fully vaccinated, though the government has millions of vaccines on order.
How Australia’s Pfizer rollout is benefiting from Polish vaccination hesitancy (The New Daily)
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/coronavirus/2021/08/15/australia-pfizer-poland-anti-vaccination/
Australia’s purchase of more than a million new doses of the Pfizer vaccine is a direct result of vaccination hesitancy in Poland. Although Australia’s vaccination program has relied mainly on AstraZeneca, confusing health advice and subsequent hesitancy has slowed the rollout. As a result, the federal government has frantically sought to supplement its meagre stocks of Pfizer, which is the preferred vaccine for most of the population.
Poland, meanwhile, has a surplus of vaccines as the number of people in the country registering for vaccination continues to slow. The Eastern European nation has experienced a worrying rise in anti-vaccination incidents in recent months, escalating from mass protests to the burning of a vaccination facility.
Hungary signs MoU on local Sinopharm vaccine production (Budapest Business Journal)
https://bbj.hu/business/industry/pharma/hungary-signs-mou-on-local-sinopharm-vaccine-production
Hungary has signed a memorandum of understanding on the local production of a COVID vaccine developed by China’s Sinopharm, state secretary Tamás Menczer said in a post on Facebook on Friday.
Under the MoU, signed with Sinopharm-CNBG VP Jiang Xiuchang and CEO of Sinopharm-CNBG’s joint venture in the UAE Peng Xiao, capacity and infrastructure to produce the vaccine will be set up in Hungary in 10 months, at the latest, Menczer said.
Croatian Pharmaceutical Companies Increase Profit and Revenue in 2020 (Total Croatia News)
https://www.total-croatia-news.com/business/55621-croatian-pharmaceutical-companies
Croatian pharmaceutical companies rather unsurprisingly did better than the vast majority of other sectors in pandemic-dominated 2020, raising their profit and revenue considerably.
As Marina Klepo/Novac writes, out of 364 Croatian pharmaceutical companies currently in operation, 339 of them ended the dire year of 2020 with a profit, increasing it by 9.3 percent compared to 2019, to a total of 285.4 million kuna. The figures are far from surprising considering the global public health crisis which broke out in the spring of that year.
