When it comes to the drugs industry, Britain is suffering withdrawal symptoms.
This year, three of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies – Merck, AstraZeneca, and Eli Lilly – have pulled or paused UK investments worth almost £2bn, diagnosing that market conditions, specifically the NHS drugs pricing regime, make the UK a “contagion risk”.
The issue will be highlighted this week as Donald Trump begins his state visit, with executives called to give evidence to a parliamentary select committee on Tuesday, along with science minister Lord Vallance, a veteran of the pandemic, when government worked closely with pharmaceutical companies to speed up vaccine development.
How has this come about?
The UK pharmaceutical industry is one of those caught in the crossfire of Trump’s trade war.
In the trade deal agreed by the president and Sir Keir Starmer in May, the prime minister committed to “improve the overall environment for pharmaceutical companies in the United Kingdom”.
Four months later, those companies – under pressure from Trump to charge US consumers the same as those in Europe, and to invest in US production and research – say the opposite is the case.
They argue the British market is becoming unviable to pharmaceutical investors, at a cost to patients, jobs, and the economy.
Data from the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industries bear this out; R&D investment growth has fallen below the global average and foreign inward investment has declined almost 60% since 2020.
Why the corporate backlash?
To understand why an industry long regarded as a domestic strength has turned against…
