In June 2022, the Dutch minister of Health, Welfare and Sports (‘VWS’) submitted the report "The Financial Ecosystem of Pharmaceutical R&D" to the House of Representatives of the Netherlands. This report describes how the current financial ecosystem of drug research and development operates, and concludes that a drug’s expected financial return ultimately determines whether it is developed, not the expected societal impact. VWS is now considering whether better prioritisation of societally relevant drugs is possible given the current financial ecosystem. As a first follow-up to the report, VWS wants to know for which conditions the current ecosystem produces many or few new drugs. This information can then form the starting point for follow-up research into the largest ‘pharmaceutical gaps’ in the Netherlands.
Link to the report: here.
