With a new UK Budget looming on 30 October, the first of this new Labour government, the Chancellor has been urged to protect the country’s life sciences sector and increase investment in medicines.

Concerns have been raised in response to rumours of potential cuts to UK research & development (R&D) funding.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Life Sciences, a new group of MPs and peers, has urged the Chancellor to protect government funding for life sciences research and manufacturing, and the tax reliefs that encourage investment.

Medical research charities invested £1.7 billion in R&D in 2023, and the life sciences industry invested over £9 billion. This supports over 26,000 charity-funded researcher jobs in universities and the NHS, and over 300,000 industry jobs across the UK.

Kit Malthouse MP, Chair of the APPG, said: “The life sciences sector holds out an incredible promise that the UK can be at the forefront of humanity’s battle with disease and at the same time build a 21st century knowledge-based economy. The All-Party Group embraces every aspect of this exciting sector and we hope it will play a part in maintaining the UK as a science super power.”

The APPG for Life Sciences is supported by: The BioIndustry Association (BIA), the Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC), Cancer Research UK (CRUK), the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI), The Academy of Medical Sciences, Versus Arthritis, The British Heart Foundation and the British In Vitro Diagnostic Association (BIVDA).

Declining investment in new medicines

The ABPI has also emphasised the importance of medicines and vaccines in response to the government launching a national conversation about the future of the NHS.

Richard Torbett, Chief Executive of the ABPI, said: “Wes Streeting is spot-on in identifying three strategic shifts necessary to fix the broken NHS. Medicines and vaccines have a vital role in all three of these priorities, but we are not currently realising their potential. Declining investment in new medicines is part of the ‘broken NHS’, and if we’re serious about fixing it, we need to reverse that trend.

“A decade of declining investment has left us with patchy adoption and real tensions on price due to the UK being so far out of line with most of the developed world. The pharmaceutical industry has a strong tradition in the UK of partnering with the government to try and grow the sector whilst also managing cost, but we now need to be much more ambitious.”

The Association points out that, in a decade when healthcare spending increased by 18%, spending on branded medicines fell 14% in real terms1. UK medicines spending is now just 9% of the UK’s healthcare spend compared to countries like Italy (17%), Germany (17%) and France (15%)2.

Currently, UK treatable and avoidable mortality is the second worst in the G7 after the US, with UK mortality from treatable causes at a rate of 69 per 100,000. This is around 50% more than Japan, France and Canada3.

References:

  1. ABPI, Leading global pharma firms exit UK drug pricing agreement, January 2023
  2. ABPI & PWC, ‘Transforming lives, raising productivity: Is the UK missing out on the full potential of innovative medicines?’, May 2022
  3. OECD, Avoidable Mortality (preventable and treatable), November 2023

Diana Spencer, Senior Digital Content Editor, DDW