Europe’s growing reimbursement hurdles and falling prices, compounded by a currency and sovereign debt crisis, mean the region’s no longer a strategic priority for Big Pharma. But while major pharmaceutical firms have sufficient scale and reach to continue to move jobs abroad and step up their emerging markets activities if conditions don’t improve closer to home, most of the rest of industry’s smaller commercial players – including the Big Biotechs – don’t.

Bayer's chairman, Marijn Dekkers, calls for a greater appreciation of pharmaceutical inventors and brands, as the diversified Big Pharma reported group sales up 4% in 2011, and profits up 90% on lower charges.

Price cuts and austerity measures made 2011 a bleak year for European pharma. These dynamics are more severe but not new, and likely will accelerate firms’ existing geographic expansion and market access strategies.