New Investment Provides Support For UK Life Sciences Sector

In the year since the government’s Life Sciences Sector Plan was introduced, the industry has attracted considerable new investments from both private and public sources. 

Overall, in the last year the country’s life sciences industry has attracted £3 billion in investment, which is contributing towards reduced waiting times to access clinical trials, quicker drug approvals and more innovation in the industry as a whole. 

Where has the new life sciences investment come from?

One of the biggest single investments in the past 12 months came courtesy of pharmaceutical company Moderna, which announced a £1 billion commitment to investing in research and development (R&D) over the next decade. 

That announcement accompanied the opening of Moderna’s new state-of-the-art manufacturing and R&D facility based in Harwell, Oxfordshire.

This facility will produce the mRNA respiratory vaccines that are offered to those living in the UK, as well as carrying out research into how mRNA science could be used to fight other conditions, including cancer, immune disorders and other rare illnesses.

According to the company, the site can produce up to 100 million mRNA vaccine doses each year, with the ability to scale this up to 250 million doses should another pandemic occur.

But Moderna isn’t the only pharmaceutical firm that’s bolstered the UK’s life sciences sector. 

AstraZeneca announced a £300 million investment in its Cambridgeshire headquarters, while UCB will deliver £500 million in joint investment with the government as it develops its new R&D facilities in Windlesham in Surrey.

The R&D work at UCB’s Windlesham site will focus on immunological diseases and comes off the back of a series of successes to come from its UK operations. 

These include the discovery of six antibodies that are being developed by partners and four treatments developed by UCB in the UK that are now available around the world. 

UCB is also partnering with Southampton University to launch DARC – the Digital Antibody Research Collaboration.

The aim of this partnership is to develop an end-to-end platform that can produce computationally designed antibodies. In doing so, the two organisations hope to reduce the amount of time it takes to design, develop and test molecules to prepare for clinical trials.

This three-year initiative will harness AI technology to support its work, blending UCB’s expertise in the field of drug discovery with computational chemistry knowledge and experience from the university’s team. 

What benefits is this life sciences investment creating?

Among the headline achievements so far as a result of renewed investment in the UK’s life sciences sector are a reduction in the time it takes to set up clinical trials in the country. This has fallen from an average of 169 days to 122.

What’s more, a new joint approval process between the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority (MHRA) and National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) means that treatments can now be approved more quickly for use.

It is estimated that the MHRA-NICE joint approval process has reduced the time it takes for a new drug to be approved by up to six months. 

Meanwhile, the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) has launched a new map to highlight how pharmaceutical companies support communities around the UK.

In addition to directly employing over 125,000 people in the country, the ABPI map shows the pharmaceutical industry has over 3,600 collaborations with the NHS and generates an estimated gross value-added contribution of £20.4 billion to the UK’s economy.

How does this investment benefit the broader life sciences sector?

Seeing big companies like Moderna, UCB and AstraZeneca making significant investments in their UK life sciences bases can give confidence to others in the industry who may be considering entering or expanding in the UK market.

If your organisation provides goods or services to life sciences companies, you may find that this stream of investment provides new opportunities.

One of the best ways to uncover these opportunities is through professional and targeted life sciences telemarketing, as this will help raise awareness of your company within the sector as well as informing them about your products or services more specifically.

There are various kinds of telemarketing you can tap into for your life sciences organisation, including lead generation, lead qualification and nurture and demand generation. 

Each serves its own purpose and given the expansion in the UK’s life sciences sector at present, now is the ideal time to explore your options so that your company can grow alongside others in this innovative industry and build its own momentum.