“Europe is also working on health. This theme is almost never at the center of the agenda and yet health, among many other things, also means economic growth: a study conducted in the Netherlands has shown that every euro spent to vaccinate an adult person earns four for the entire system ”. To say it, as did al Ambrosetti workshop in Cernobbio, is Nicoletta Luppi, chief executive officer of MSD, the Italian subsidiary of Merck & Co., the pharmaceutical multinational with a turnover of 40 billion dollars, 18% of which invested in research and development. And it's not just the news stories of these days that are calling for a qualitative leap for Europe in health policy. Companies can do a lot, but the institutional framework to face the new challenges and new frontiers of health is lacking.
“To give a benchmark, our group invests twice as much in innovation as Apple, and we are among the top 5 global groups at the forefront of R&D”. MSD in Italy has a thousand employees (of which 40% are women) and carries out both research - also supporting independent research with an investment of 44 million and 400 scholarships – what production. "In our 126-year history at a global level - continues Nicoletta Luppi - we have contributed to scientific progress through the discovery and development of many innovative drugs, from the synthesis of cortisone in the early 40s to the first vaccines for measles, and cancer, from hypertension treatments to the first drug that stopped HIV deaths”. Today, three Nobel Prize winners work in the group.
A constant research activity, which however now faces new challenges, from vaccines to the new generation of antibiotics that are less talked about: "As mentioned, vaccinating also pays off economically: you earn four times the amount invested in the expenses for treatment, absences from work due to illness, etc. But the other major frontier is that of immuno-oncology, i.e. anti-tumor drugs. Without forgetting hepatitis C and Alzheimer's”. And then there's the dramatic and underappreciated issue of antibiotic resistance: “At this rate, antibiotic resistant bacteria will cause more deaths than cancer by 2050.”
Precisely on this front, among other things, a direction, a common policy, European but not only, would be needed. “In 1978, the WHO said a stop to research for antibiotics. MSD went ahead and produced two more, but once research stops or slows down, it takes at least ten years to get it going again. Now the pharmaceutical industry is going through an excellent period, but we need a common direction”. Europe's role in supporting research, but also in making it more democratic and to address a phenomenon, especially typical of the western world, such as that of the aging of the population: "The issues are precisely these: there is no equal access to innovation in the various regions of Italy, let alone between country and country".
“And then the European population is aging – continues the CEO of MSD -, it is a fact: you live longer but that doesn't necessarily mean you live better, On the contrary. Just think, for example, that INPS spends 9 billion euros every year just for pensions for diabetes”. A battle, that of MSD and Merck, which already began on the other side of the Atlantic and on even broader fronts, such as that of racism: the CEO of Merck, Ken Frazier, is African American and resigned after the events in Charlottesville by the manufacturing advisory council, due to disagreements with President Trump. “A good signal, of which we are proud”, comments Luppi.
