Government Pledges £5bn For UK Health R&D
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The Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak announced his latest Budget on Wednesday 27 October and announced that the treasury has committed to spending £5 billion on health-related research and development before 2025.
The funding forms part of a pledge to raise spending on R&D in the UK to £22 billion a year, but the Chancellor also announced during his Budget presentation that he will be moving the goalposts on his target, pushing it back by two years to 2026/27.
The funding has been broadly welcomed by industry groups, although the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) expressed concerns about how the money will be spent, according to Pharmaphorum.
“Increasing health-specific research to £5 billion is a positive signal that the government remains committed to this agenda, despite the delay in when we will reach £22 billion a year of public investment in R&D,” said an ABPI spokesperson.
They added that there is still clarity needed on how the government plans to fund institutions such as the MHRA and NICE, but the measures to boost investment in life sciences and research in the UK announced in the Chancellor’s Budget would be well received by the APBI’s members as they look towards R&D investments in the medicines and vaccines of the future.
The ABPI also welcomed the announcement by the Chancellor that R&D tax reliefs would be reformed to ‘support modern research methods’, which was an opinion shared by the UK’s BioIndustry Association (BIA).
CEO Steve Bates OBE said: “Thanks to the UK’s life sciences sector, which has developed essential COVID-19 vaccines, diagnostics and medicines that have enabled the re-opening of our economy, the Chancellor was able to make important spending commitments in this Budget, which we welcome.”
Bates added that modernising R&D tax reliefs to include data and cloud computing is necessary for life sciences companies to be able to discover and develop life-changing therapies for patients.
The £5 billion commitment does contain funds earmarked for specific uses, such as £95 million for the Office for Life Sciences to help deliver the government’s Life Sciences Vision, and funds to launch Boris Johnson’s healthcare missions in cancer, obesity, and mental health, as well as addressing the systematic barriers to the access and uptake of state-of-the-art innovations in the NHS.
The manufacture of medicines, diagnostics, and vaccines will receive £354 million for research into health resilience, while also creating new roles within the UK life sciences sector.
It was also announced that £2.1 billion is to be spent on IT upgrades and digital health technology to support the ‘innovative use of digital technology so hospitals and other care organisations are as connected and efficient as possible’.
This funding is part of a wider £5.9 billion capital investment in the UK’s National Health Service to help clear the record backlog of patients who are waiting for treatment.
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