The European Commission has set itself an ambitious target: making Europe the world’s most attractive destination for life sciences by 2030. In recent conversations with PharmaBoardroom, executives leading Europe for AbbVie, BeOne Medicines, CSL, Merz Therapeutics, and Novartis would love to see this realised and agree that Europe’s scientific fundamentals remain extraordinary. However, they also agree that it is being squeezed by both the US and China and that its access pathways are not up to scratch. 2026’s wave of legislative reform is the clearest opportunity in years to close the gap and keep the capital flowing.
An Extraordinary Legacy
Europe has historically been one of the global epicentres of pharmaceutical innovation, with all the fundamentals in place to remain so. “I see a region with an extraordinary legacy in science, education, innovation, and clinical development,” says Iris Zemzoum, president for Europe at Swiss-headquartered Novartis. Novartis medicines touch more than 43 million patients annually across the EU and the company employs around 31,500 people across 76 sites in Europe.
“In many ways, all the foundations remain in place for Europe to continue shaping the future of healthcare globally,” adds Zemzoum, noting that 25,000 patients are currently enrolled in Novartis-sponsored clinical trials in Europe, across 25 countries.
European clinical trials are also vital for less well-established players. BeOne Medicines, for instance, traces its roots back to China but now stands as a genuine global player in oncology with two marketed products and a full pipeline, with Europe a core part of that story.
Giancarlo Benelli, SVP & Head of Europe notes that “Europe is now our largest contributor to clinical development in terms of patient enrolment, and this year we expect to enrol more than 1,200 patients into European clinical trials.” Going against the grain of declining trial investment in Europe, BeOne is stepping up its European trials and has now enrolled more than 5,000 patients in studies across the region.
Europe is commercially significant to BeOne too – It generated more than 64 percent of global growth in Q1 2026, and its BTK inhibitor zanubrutinib now moves comparable volumes in Europe and the US.
Even for the most US-centric Big Pharmas, Europe has a role to play. The US generates over three-quarters of global revenues for AbbVie, which has recently committed USD 100 billion to US-based research and manufacturing over the next decade, but Europe still represents much more than a minor commercial market to the firm.
As recently-installed SVP Europe Rami Fayed explains, “Europe has always played a fundamental role in how we develop science, and that is reflected in the investments we have made across research and development, manufacturing and clinical research.”
Fayed – who oversees the continent from Dubai – continues, “Our R&D centre in Ludwigshafen, Germany, is our second-largest globally and a major centre of excellence for neuroscience, while Europe as a whole represents a significant share of our global clinical trial activity and supports an extensive manufacturing footprint.”
Beyond R&D, it is in manufacturing where Europe has an outsized impact for Australian-headquartered CSL. “Europe is enormously important to us,” proclaims Dirk Hoheisel, SVP & Head of Commercial International at the company, a leader in plasma-derived medicines. “We have thousands of employees across the region, major facilities in Marburg in Germany, two large sites in Switzerland, operations in the UK, and plasma collection centres in countries such as Germany and Hungary,” he adds.
The Global Squeeze
Despite these strong fundamentals, Europe’s position as a life sciences destination is under real pressure. The US remains by far the world’s largest pharmaceutical market and still pays significantly more for innovative medicines than any other developed country. That gap is now being actively defended by policy: under the Trump administration’s Most Favored Nation framework, 17 of the world’s largest manufacturers have signed voluntary agreements tying discounted US pricing to Medicaid and cash-pay patients, in exchange for a multi-year suspension of tariffs on pharmaceutical imports.
A parallel April 2026 executive order goes further, linking tariff relief directly to US-based manufacturing commitments. Analysts warn the mechanics of MFN could still push companies toward delaying or skipping European launches altogether, rather than setting a low reference price that could ultimately be imported back into the US calculation.
Layered onto that is China’s rapid rise as an innovation source in its own right. Chinese biotechs signed a record USD 135.7 billion in outbound licensing deals in 2025 — nearly ten times 2021 levels, and roughly a third of all global licensing spend — with 2026 already on pace to exceed it. China’s share of the world’s innovative drug pipeline has grown from eight percent in 2018 to around 30 percent today, driven by fast, low-cost clinical trials and an increasingly dominant position in categories like antibody-drug conjugates.
For a Europe already navigating slower reimbursement timelines, the message from both directions is the same: capital and innovation are becoming more mobile, and less patient. As Hoheisel puts it, “The US continues to set the global benchmark in biopharma, while China has advanced rapidly and now competes at a much higher level across research and development, clinical development, and innovation. Against that backdrop, Europe risks becoming less attractive unless it strengthens its competitiveness and addresses some of its structural challenges.”
Access Woes
Fayed, for one, is insistent on the need for access reform so that innovative medicines, many of which have been partly or fully developed, tested and manufactured in Europe, can make it all the way to European patients.
“We can develop breakthrough medicines, generate the evidence and secure regulatory approval, but making those medicines available through national reimbursement systems remains much more challenging,” says Fayed, noting that the average time between central European Union marketing authorisation and patient availability has increased to 597 days, almost 20 months, with access often accompanied by reimbursement restrictions and cost-containment measures that limit which patients can actually receive treatment.
CSL’s Hoheisel feels that the main challenge is that Europe remains “highly complex and fragmented.” He explains that “The EMA has helped create greater regulatory alignment, but when it comes to reimbursement, pricing, procurement, sustainability requirements, and broader policy frameworks, companies must still navigate each market individually. Bringing medicines to patients across Europe still often feels like starting from scratch in every country, despite the expectations and promise of EU Joint Clinical Assessments in the coming years.”
The EU Health Technology Assessment regulation, implemented in January 2025, was designed to replace 27 fragmented national evaluations with a single Joint Clinical Assessment, run in parallel with EMA review. While broadly supported by industry as a concept – Zemzoum describes it as “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity … that can help reduce duplication and bring life sciences innovation faster to patients in Europe,” in practice the first JCA reports have yet to be published, capacity is being built from scratch, and industry confidence is conditional at best.
For Dan Staner of Merz Therapeutics – a 118-year-old German firm now focusing on specialty neurology – Europe’s access pathways are simply not keeping pace with the science. “What often becomes most frustrating is not necessarily the scientific scrutiny itself, but the delays and complexity of the reimbursement pathway after the clinical work has already been completed,” says Staner, a veteran of Lilly and Moderna, now Merz’s president for Europe.
“The reimbursement effort can sometimes become almost as demanding as the R&D effort itself, particularly when innovative therapies are benchmarked against very low-cost generic comparators without fully recognising the level of scientific risk and investment required to develop new treatments in fields like neurology,” he says.
Zemzoum underlines the human cost of these delays. “After years of clinical development and a positive scientific assessment, patients are often still waiting one or even two additional years for treatment depending on the country,” she laments.
“For many patients, every day matters. That is why I believe there is an urgent need for greater collaboration across the healthcare ecosystem to redesign access pathways and reduce those delays through a shared commitment to providing access to medicine from day one following regulatory approval.”
Change in the Air
There is no magic wand to cure Europe’s access woes, but two major reforms now moving through Brussels are giving the pharma C-suite reason for cautious optimism. The EU Pharmaceutical Package — the biggest overhaul of European pharma law in over two decades — reached political agreement in December 2025 and is expected to enter into force this year, with a transition period running to 2028 as member states update their national rules.
Among the practical changes are faster EMA review timelines, and a restructured system of market exclusivity that rewards companies for things like launching in more EU countries and running trials that include underrepresented patient groups.
Running alongside it is the European Biotech Act, proposed in December 2025 as part of the Commission’s push to make Europe the “world’s most attractive destination for life sciences” by 2030. Still working through consultation, with industry feedback ongoing, the Act aims to simplify regulatory processes and boost EU-based biomanufacturing through new funding and incentives.
Neither reform is a fix in itself, and both will be judged on execution rather than intent — a point every executive interviewed keeps returning to. But their arrival gives the industry something it has lacked in recent years: a concrete legislative timeline to measure Europe’s follow-through against.
“Europe has the scientific expertise, clinical capabilities, and infrastructure needed to remain a leader in advanced therapies,” says Hoheisel. “The question is whether it can match those strengths with the clarity, trust, and long-term predictability that encourage investment.”
“Europe has already built a strong scientific and regulatory ecosystem; the next challenge is ensuring that innovation reaches patients more quickly and more consistently across the region,” adds Fayed.
Zemzoum spots an opportunity ahead. “Europe has built its position over centuries, and we should not lose it at a moment when other regions are investing heavily in healthcare, biotechnology, and innovation,” she states.
“At a time when many European economies are under pressure and public spending priorities are increasingly competing with one another, we have an opportunity to reframe how we think about healthcare spending; viewing it as a long-term investment in the resilience, productivity, and wellbeing of societies not a cost to be contained.”
