EFCG Reaches Milestones AfterFirst Year

Trade Association

Created just over a year ago to be the voice of the European fine chemicals industry, the European Fine Chemicals Group (EFCG) now counts about 30 small and large companies and seven trade groups among its members. European firms produce about 44% of the $28 billion worldwide merchant market for active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), down from nearly 65% some 15 years ago, according to the Chemical Pharmaceutical Generic Association, based in Italy.

"Our vision is to sustain value creation through competitiveness, growth, and environmental performance," explained Heinz Sieger, president of the EFCG board and chief executive of Chemie Uetikon, at the November 2005 CPhI meeting in Madrid. "Our main objective is to minimize the regulatory bias favoring non-European manufacturers."

"In one year, we've done not too bad a job, but there are still a lot of things to do," he reported. The group operates as part of the European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC). Among his goals, Sieger would like to see EFCG's membership double.

In 2005, EFCG created four committees with separate objectives and action plans. One came from integrating CEFIC's Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients Committee (APIC), which represents about 60 member companies, into EFCG to handle the technical side of issues.

Meanwhile, the Pharmaceutical Business Committee focuses on business performance. Two remaining committees target agrochemical interests and innovation, and the overall group's board takes responsibility for activities related to the European Union's policy for the registration, evaluation, and authorization of chemicals, REACH.

"REACH is the most difficult issue we have in industry," Sieger told CPhI attendees. But addressing innovation is also challenging because of the different views of industry and government. "The governments of the different countries are pumping a lot of money into research and think that this is innovation," he said. Although research is a route to generating ideas, he added, "in our opinion, innovation is the conversion of ideas into money."

"We are working on this definition and trying to improve advocacy and the conditions for real innovation," he continued. "And we want to improve business performance by identifying and dealing with the barriers to innovation."

In early 2000, European government leaders declared in the Lisbon Agenda that the EU would be the most competitive, knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010. "After five years," Sieger remarked, "I don't see too much progress."