[Global Times Special Correspondent Ren Zhong] The British pharmaceutical industry has been hit frequently recently. According to a recent report by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca issued a statement on September 12 saying that it had decided to stop its plan to invest 200 million pounds in the Cambridge R&D base. Shortly before the statement was issued, American pharmaceutical giant Merck The company also canceled its original 1 billion pound expansion plan in the UK on the grounds that the British government had not invested enough in the industry.
This is the second time AstraZeneca has withdrawn its major investment plan this year. In January, the company abandoned plans to invest £ 450 m in vaccine manufacturing plants in northern England, when it blamed declining government support. This investment suspension means that the company's 650 million pounds of investment in the UK announced in March last year is currently at a standstill. A Merck spokesman said that Merck's cancellation of investment reflected "the UK's failure to make substantial progress in solving the underinvestment in the life sciences industry and the long-term underestimation of the value of innovative drugs and vaccines by successive governments." It is reported that the King's Cross base in London, which Merck has started construction, was originally scheduled to be completed in 2027, but now it has been announced that it will no longer be used.
In the past decade, the proportion of UK drug spending in the national healthcare system budget has dropped from 15 percent to 9 percent, while the proportion in other developed countries has remained at 14 percent to 20 percent.
The Guardian, citing analysts, that in exchanges with chief executive officers of several large pharmaceutical companies, it was found that "they were unanimous and all said no more investment in the UK."The French pharmaceutical company Sanofi's chief market access officer Paul Nash said on Friday that the UK needs to introduce "a concrete plan for the life science industry" and noted that the country has become "unsuitable for drug research and sales."