ALEX BRUMMER: Finance must ensure NHS and drug regulatory agencies have the right resources to keep UK innovators ahead
- Failure at Whitehall to seize the opportunity for Britain to become a pioneer in the life sciences
- All pieces of the puzzle are there
- Not only money is needed
The best that can be said about the latest snapshot of the UK economy is that the country is at least navigating a downturn at the moment. The economy grew by 0.1 percent in the first quarter and 0.2 percent year-on-year.
What is encouraging is that business investment is picking up, with the official figures showing a 3.3 percent increase, a sharp upward revision from the previously reported 0.7 percent.
Rishi Sunak’s government is trying to stimulate business through 100 percent capital deductions for new investments.
The Treasury is also making hyperbolic claims that the passage of the new financial services bill, which decouples the UK from the European Union, could free up as much as £100bn for innovation and infrastructure.
Support for the City and for London listings is critical and we should be excited about Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s determination to embrace high tech and AI.
Moving forward: A concern for Britain’s big pharma is the failure in Whitehall to seize the opportunity for Britain to be a pioneer in life sciences
But not only money is needed.
The new arrangements may free the Square Mile from the stifling EU regulation, but it does so far do nothing to ease the burden of domestic bureaucracy. Life sciences is an area where Britain can make big gains. Hardly a day goes by without our leading pharmaceutical companies, AstraZeneca and GSK, having investors announce positive drug or vaccine development.
GSK is making great strides in vaccines for RSV respiratory disease. It is the world leader in developing simpler and easier to administer HIV vaccines.
And the shingrex vaccine is approved in Japan for preventive treatment against shingles for adults over 18 years old.
The beauty of vaccines, which GSK is the world leader in, is that they have a much longer lifespan than many drugs.
Most people in Britain know the name Astra because of its embrace of the Oxford-developed Covid vaccine and its ability to scale up to global production. We all stood in line at vaccination centers where the topic of discussion was whether to administer the Astra or Pfizer vaccine.
What’s less known about Astra is the way it took the world by storm since turning down Pfizer’s £69bn bid in 2014.
Under the leadership of Aussie-French CEO Pascal Soriot, it has become the most valuable company of the FTSE 100, with a market capitalization of £181 million.
Fueled by the rapid development of immunological treatments for cancer, it is now worth billions of pounds more than former predator Pfizer.
Astra’s market recognition is a counterpoint to London Stock Exchange critics. It shows that well-run, innovative companies can achieve just as high valuations in the city as they do on Wall Street.
Astra’s pipeline is booming. Approvals are coming in fast and thick from abroad. Last week, the US Food and Drug Administration approved farxiga to prevent the deaths of patients with heart disease, and Beijing gave its thumbs up to its once-daily drug for type 2 diabetes.
A concern for Britain’s big pharma is the failure in Whitehall to seize the opportunity for Britain to become a life sciences pioneer.
All pieces of the puzzle are there.
Astra and GSK create their own ecosystems by investing in biotech, genetically-specific medicines and, in the case of Astra, open access research laboratories in Cambridge.
The NHS offers huge opportunities for testing and analyzing new vaccines and compounds. But poor IT, treatment backlogs and chaos caused by strikes make it an unreliable partner for our pharma pioneers.
The UK vaccine and drug agencies, the Joint Commission on Vaccination and Immunization and the MHRA, which acted swiftly and decisively in the pandemic, seem oblivious to the commercial advantage to be gained from faster approvals.
Our life sciences businesses are eager to go and drugs, long in the pipeline, are starting to pay off. How frustrating that the country is being held back by domestic blockades, even though we are in a new world where British drug makers are no longer dependent on the politically complex and sclerotic European Medicines Agency.
If the Treasury really wants to put rocket fuel into growth, it needs to ensure that the NHS and drug regulators have the right resources to keep Britain’s innovators ahead.