EU can lead biotech’s ‘third wave’, but must change how it values innovation

Bayer’s Benelux head, Niels Hessmann, says Europe has the potential to lead the next wave of biotech innovation. The company is pouring billions into a “third wave” of therapies that aim not just to treat symptoms but to stop or even reverse disease.

Bayer has invested around €3.5 billion in cell and gene therapy, building research and manufacturing platforms across Europe and the United States despite long timelines and high risk. Several of its programs, including a potential first-in-class cell therapy for Parkinson’s disease and a gene therapy for chronic heart failure, are already in late-stage development.

But Hessmann cautioned that without changes to how these treatments are valued and paid for, Belgium and other EU countries risk falling behind in the global race.

Policymakers in Brussels are beginning to respond, with the EU’s Biotech Act seen as a step forward. Still, Hessmann tells Euractiv’s Nicole Verbeeck that without greater flexibility on patents and…