AstraZeneca and GSK warn Europe’s drug industry is ‘at risk’

Britain's biggest pharmaceutical companies have warned the future of the industry is at risk as Europe loses ground to the US and China in medical research. AstraZeneca and GSK, along with European rivals Novo Nordisk, Sanofi, Roche and Novartis, wrote an open letter warning that they were "losing ground to global competition". The letter warned that "without urgent action, strategic sectors like pharmaceuticals face a 'slow agony' of decline" as rivals increasingly dominate research-and-development spending and investment. "The pharmaceutical sector is one of our continent's great post-war achievements," the letter said. "But this hard-won inheritance is at risk.