Smaller French Drugmakers Confident Of Future

Pharmaceutical industry experts have been predicting a less-than-rosyfuture for France's smaller drugmakers. However, their ideas have been seriously questioned by these very drug companies at a three-day industrial conference in Paris.

Jose Freche, a senior director of Pierre Fabre said they (the companies) were not "insects on the way out," and they (the "experts") needed to cease decreeing that such and such a pharmaceutical company lacked the critical mass to survive. He reminded the conference that 10 years ago Bill Gates of Microsoft headed a medium-sized company.

Bruno Angelici of Zeneca France said that in 10 years the share of the eight leading world major drug groups had gone up from 23% to only 25%, so consolidation is not as inescapable as was supposed. He argued that there is no obvious correlation between company size and profitability, or between size and R&D productivity.