[Current challenges for the pharmaceutical research industry]

The Research Pharmaceutical Industry is currently facing a number of increasingly complex challenges. Today indeed, the discovery and marketing of innovative medicines is linked: not only to Compagnies' abilities to solve relatively basic and traditional difficulties which have deeply changed over the past few years, for instance: the regulatory constraints, the dramatic increase in development costs, the critical mass required for investments, the development time periods and the protection of innovation, human resources and organization; but also to the acceptance of recent factors which the Research Pharmaceutical Industry must imperatively overcome, such as: the new Research channels and namely biotechnologies, the building of a pharmaceutical Europe and the internationalization of molecules, the needs of the third world, the innovation financing and the control of Health expenditures, the public opinion's shift in expectations regarding ethical and environmental issues. The Pharmaceutical Industry is currently in a shake-up phase during which it will undergo deep changes, with regard both to its activities and in relations with its environment.