ABPI Launches New UK Life Sciences Innovation Taskforce
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The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) has announced the creation of a joint taskforce with the UK government to help drive innovation in the country’s commercial life sciences sector.
Specifically, this taskforce will be looking at the broader medicines pricing system and future schemes that could replace the voluntary scheme that will run until 2028. However, the ABPI stressed that this taskforce will not replace the current voluntary scheme negotiations.
The voluntary scheme for branded medicines, pricing, access and growth (VPAG) came into use at the end of 2023.
However, the government wants the UK’s life sciences sector to be the third most important life sciences economy in the world by 2035, which will require innovative approaches from those across the sector.
This new ABPI-led taskforce aims to help innovate and bring solutions to fruition sooner. The hope is that some innovations could be rolled out as pilot schemes as early as September 2026.
During the coming months, the ABPI and other taskforce members will consult with the likes of NHS England and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), along with patient groups and charitable partners.
How will this taskforce support the wider life sciences sector?
In July 2025, the government launched a new ten-year Life Sciences Sector Plan with three main pillars:
- Enabling world-class research and development (R&D).
- Making the UK an outstanding place to start, scale and invest.
- Driving health innovation and NHS reform.
This new taskforce falls under that third pillar and will help start the consultation process and bring ideas to the table before the current VPAG scheme ends, ensuring that there is a pathway forward two years from now.
How can my life sciences business use telemarketing to grow?
If you operate a life sciences business in the UK and are keen to make the most of the government’s focus on growing this sector, there are various avenues open to you in order to increase awareness of your business and sales of your products.
One of them is life science demand generation. This approach is ideal if you have a new product, technique or brand that you want to bring to the market.
Unlike lead generation, which focuses on bringing more qualified leads into your sales pipeline, demand generation focuses on raising awareness of your business and positioning you as a trusted expert in your space.
The aim is that when the people you reach out to via demand generation need a product or service such as yours, your company’s name will be the first one they think of.
We use targeted campaigns to build brand awareness and build long-term relationships with the people who matter in your sector. This can be a valuable part of a go-to-market strategy for a new product, for instance.
Demand generation, when done well, also leads naturally to lead generation, providing your sales team with a pipeline of warm, interested leads with whom they can have conversations. It’s a conversational and natural way to approach marketing in a targeted manner.