Belgium is often described as Europe’s “pharma valley”. But this champion is starting to run out of steam. On Monday, marking its 60th anniversary, the pharmaceutical industry federation Pharma.be issued a serious warning. “We are very worried about the years ahead,” its CEO Caroline Ven summed up at a press conference in Brussels.
Indicators turning red
The figures speak for themselves. Medicine exports, worth around €73 billion a year, fell by 6.8% in 2025. Investment dropped by 12% in 2024, then by a further 4% in 2025. And more than 400 jobs disappeared in the sector between 2023 and 2025.
According to the federation, Donald Trump’s trade policy in the United States partly explains the decline in exports. A recent Pharma.be study shows that Belgium remains top of the European Union for research and development investment per capita in this sector, but that Europe as a whole is falling behind in the global innovation race.
The health budget in the firing line
The concern is also very Belgian. Federal budget negotiations are considering savings in healthcare, and the sector fears it will bear the brunt. Caroline Ven points out that some twenty years ago, Belgium spent nearly 1.7% of its GDP on reimbursing medicines, compared with around 1.1% today.
If the trend continues, she warns, the effects will be felt in research, universities, hospitals and clinical trial centres.
What the sector is asking for
Pharma.be is calling on the authorities to protect innovation, notably by supporting R&D, to treat healthcare as an investment rather than a cost, to speed up patient access to new treatments and to restore the country’s competitiveness.
For patients, the stakes are concrete: Belgium is also home to many clinical trials that provide early access to innovative treatments. A weakening ecosystem potentially means fewer trials and medicines arriving later.
Sources : La Libre / Belga
Photo: Adoscam / CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
