Gove recommends ‘taking back control’ of UK pharma
Michael Gove, former cabinet minister and Conservative politician, highlighted EU regulations on clinical trials for new drugs as something that, in his opinion, holds back UK businesses.
Commenting at an Advertising Week Europe daily debate, he said, “I know that pharmaceuticals is a huge British success story and export, but pharmaceuticals are to an extent held back by the principles of the Clinical Trials Directive, which in some respect inhibits, for example, the development of treatments that could be trialled in a particular way, which would both help some of the suffering and advance innovation.”
One of the key figures of the Brexit campaign, Gove stated that through the pledge to ‘take back control’ the UK could amend or rescind regulations that could potentially hold businesses back.
“Of course, if we’re going to sell pharmaceuticals into another country the we’re going to have to, just as with the FDA in the US, abide by their rules,” Gove added. “There’s no reason why, within a large home market, we can’t innovate and then develop. But that is simply one area where the capacity to change the rules can spur innovation and at the same time actually potentially relieve pain and misery.”
As the PM, Theresa May, is set to trigger Article 50 today, important issues surrounding businesses in the UK and the trade deals that may or may not be achieved through Britain’s exit of the EU are coming to the fore.
“Britain is a significant player in the EU or will be a significant player outside of it,” Gove stressed. “I think it is worth giving up [our current] control or sovereignty to secure some other benefits, but it is undeniably the case that we have more control, now that we’ve left.”
His fellow panellist in the debate, Stephen Kinnock, MP for Aberavon, remarked, “There’s a seductive simplicity about this ‘take back control’ but it really, in my opinion, is fool’s gold, in the inter-dependent, interconnected world in which we live we need institutions to regulate and manage.”
However, Gove disagreed stating his opinion that outside the EU, the UK will be able to not only control its own laws but also forge trade deals with other countries, including developing countries that have been preventing from trading with the UK as a result of the high tariff wall.
“I think it’s important to recognise, as the PM has said, that if we don’t secure a good deal, no deal is better than a bad deal, but I think the right thing to do is work constructively to get a good deal,” he said. “The signs are that European politicians, once various elections and challenges are out of the way, are pragmatic and can see the benefits of such an arrangement.”