De Wever wants the R&D Biopharma platform running after the summer, done properly, not another 'talking house'
Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever has told policymakers he wants to restart the R&D Biopharma platform after the summer. He played down talk of crisis, a day after warning – at the anniversary of Novartis’s Puurs site in Belgium – that Europe is losing ground to the United States and China.
De Wever committed to reviving Belgium’s R&D Biopharma platform after the summer, responding to lawmakers and industry representatives who warn that the pharmaceutical sector is slipping. He cautioned that its troubles were less severe than in other industries.
“I want to be able to start in the autumn,” De Wever told the Internal Affairs Commission last week, confirming the platform named in his government agreement is in a preparatory phase. He said the aim was a full life science strategy, not “a talking house, as has happened in the past, without being able to achieve concrete results.”
The platform is not a new idea. A government-industry concertation body of broadly the same name has existed for two decades, and Prime Minister Alexander De Croo gave it fresh impetus in 2021, when government, academia and companies including GSK, Janssen, Pfizer and UCB signed a charter to make Belgium the “health and biotech valley” of the future.
