The head of the world’s largest drugs company has criticised the UK’s planning system, claiming it stifles investment.
Dave Ricks, chief executive of Eli Lilly, a maker of obesity drugs, said current planning processes in the UK were a major barrier to building factories quickly, unlike in the US and Ireland.
Rex revealed that he had considered setting up a factory in the UK over the past decade, but chose another country because of the UK’s cumbersome planning procedures. “Mostly what they do is pre-book land, and promise to bypass bureaucracy and layers of government,” Rex explained, comparing the UK approach to more streamlined processes elsewhere.
Eli Lilly, along with Danish rival Novo Nordisk, is a leader in the obesity drug market, producing high-demand drugs such as Zebound and Mujaro. The company is struggling to build factories fast enough to meet the growing demand.
Countries that offer reduced set-up times for pharmaceutical plants – from five years to two years – are particularly attractive, said Rex, thanks to operations in the US, Ireland and several EU countries including Italy, France and Germany. “The UK – although I love visiting it, it’s a great country – is not the biggest market, so you have to overcome that with other attractions, whether it’s the workforce, the delivery of assets or the economic incentives,” he noted.
Rex urged the UK to boost its competitiveness, saying: “We have to be honest and say: are we as competitive as we can be? So far, the competition has been a little less, but I think it is not impossible.”
Both of the UK’s main political parties have pledged to tackle planning laws in their election manifestos. The Conservatives aim to “simplify the planning system”, while Labour has promised to reform it if it wins the next general election. A Labour spokesperson criticised the Conservatives for their 14-year indecision, which they claim has let the UK’s life sciences sector down. “Labour has a plan for growth, including a new industrial strategy, and the UK’s life sciences sector is at the heart of that plan,” they added.
The Conservative Party has been contacted for comment.
Changes to planning laws are seen as crucial to boosting economic growth. The strength of the UK economy has been a key issue in the election campaign, with growth sluggish in recent years. Mr Rix suggested the UK remained a potential location for a new manufacturing facility and urged the next government to focus on becoming “world class” in attracting investment.
“It’s a competition, and we need to make it easier and faster for companies to make that choice,” he added.
A Liberal Democrat spokesman echoed those sentiments, criticising years of Conservative mismanagement for undermining business confidence and wasting investment opportunities. “We will develop an industrial strategy to foster a stable business environment with smart regulation to give businesses the certainty they need, and fix the broken business rates system to boost our manufacturing industry,” he said.
As the UK seeks to meet the need for economic recovery, reforms to the planning system could play a pivotal role in attracting crucial investment from global companies such as Eli Lilly.
