"The Canadian immunologist, who was an early member of the government's vaccine taskforce and previously worked on Oxford university's Covid vaccine with AstraZeneca, said: This is a sign of something which has been evolving over a little while, but it's going to now, I think, lead to a whole series of events which will mean that the industry is going to stop investing in the UK."
"He said the pharma industry is in real trouble in terms of pricing, particularly in America where Donald Trump has put pressure on companies to lower prices, and not to sell medications at a much lower price elsewhere. A big issue is the amount of money the NHS spends on medicines, he said. Ten years ago, we used to spend 15% of our healthcare spend on pharmaceuticals. Now it's 9%. The rest of the world, the OECD, are sitting between 14% and 20%, Bell said."
Merck cancelled a planned £1bn London research centre and will pull out of R&D in the UK, eliminating 125 science jobs and citing weak life-science investment and undervaluation of innovative medicines and vaccines. A prominent immunologist predicts Merck's decision will trigger wider pharma withdrawal of investment from the UK. The sector faces acute pricing pressure, especially from US political demands for lower drug prices and limits on differential pricing. NHS spending on medicines has fallen from 15% to 9% of healthcare expenditure over ten years, while OECD peers spend between 14% and 20%. Negotiations over medicine costs have recently broken down.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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