The UK's Life Sciences Sector is behind international competitors, and an estimated £ 15 billion annually over the past decade due to a decrease in foreign investment, a decrease in the export share and a decrease in clinical trials.
This is according to a new report issued by the Lek Consulting of the Chemical Industry Association (SCI).
Although one of the eight priority sectors is named in the upcoming industrial strategy of the government, the life science sector is fighting to transform the global level research base into commercial and economic success.
The report, which opens the value in life sciences, reveals that the share of global pharmaceutical exports in the United Kingdom decreased almost half over the past decade – from 7.3 percent in 2013 to only 3.8 percent in 2023. At the same time, the number of clinical trials that started in the United Kingdom decreased by about 8 percent annually since 2017-18, indicating a significant loss in global competition.
“The government must respond to this waking call and act to save the UK's life science sector before it is too late. We have all the components-global research, universities, and a strong industrial base-but we lose in countries that do more to maintain investment and positions within its borders.”
This warning comes at a time when the ministers face increasing pressure from the senior executives of multinational drug companies to fix the NHS sales deduction scheme, which they argue is very stressful. The last decision taken by Astrazeneca to cancel the expansion of 450 million pounds of the vaccine manufacturing site in Liverpool has sparked additional concern, after the company revealed that the government failed to fulfill a deadline to confirm financial support.
The UK is home to four of the ten best universities in the world, produces 7 percent of all international academic publications, and supports more than 300,000 jobs in the life science sector. However, the report warns that structural issues-including slow regulatory processes, lack of commercial incentives, and insufficient support for expansion-unite of growth.
SCI called on the government to provide a “comprehensive incentive system” to support companies in the early stage, expansion, and advanced clinical trials. It also urges MHRA rapid reform to simplify the process of approval of new treatments, and for the greatest strategic use of NHS data to operate research in the real world-which gives UK companies a competitive advantage in generating evidence.
“We are committed to making the United Kingdom a power in life sciences to start economic growth. We have already allocated up to 520 million pounds to increase the manufacture of treatments and transactions with full capabilities in exercises ascending to the solid installment. And health innovation of patients.”
With an increasingly focus on international competitors on enhancing ecosystems in life sciences, the leaders of the United Kingdom urge to act decisively to retain their scientific contests and turn research excellence into commercial influence – or risk in the next decade of global innovation and economic opportunity.
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