Government spending could make UK best place for medicine research, ABPI state

The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) has called on the government to make the UK the best place to develop medicines of the future.

The call comes ahead of the chancellor of the exchequer’s ‘Spending Round’, taking place this week and which is set to prioritise increased spending for “schools, hospitals and police”.

Ahead of the chancellor’s announcement, the ABPI has highlighted three areas which it believes can help bolster the UK’s life sciences sector while also providing patients with the best medicines.

Among these is an investment in science infrastructure following the government’s aim of reaching 2.4% GDP invested in R&D. The government should support pharmaceutical and biotech companies invest in R&D through modernised tax credit that ensures all aspects of R&D are eligible for support.

Financial incentives for new medicines could also be introduced, the ABPI believes, to help attract global investment to the UK.

The ABPI also hopes the chancellor announces more flexibility in the Apprenticeship Levy, such as allowing unrecovered funds to be transferred into a new skills fund to support education in needed skills areas.

Currently, only 6.5% of the Apprenticeship Levy that companies are required to pay benefits life sciences companies. More support could help fill any skills gap shortages and also provide education in emerging sciences such as genomics, bioinformatics and chemoinformatics.

More so, the ABPI wants the spending round to ensure the UK becomes the best place in the world to use the medicines of the future.

To help patients access new medicines, the ABPI wants the government to reduce the ‘discount rate’ that is currently applied to health benefits by NICE is reduced from 3.5% to 1.5%, in line with the Treasury Green Book update. By doing so it could help patients access new medicines that are potentially curative but which may not fall under the NHS’ medicine pricing schemes.

Lastly, the ABPI wants the government to commit to its five-year action plan on antimicrobial resistance by allocating resources for a centrally administered fund to ensure patients have access to the right antibiotics.