BIA response to the FCA consultations on patient capital

The BIA has responded to the Financial Conduct Authority's consultations related to patient capital, covering authorised funds and permitted links rules. 

In our submission, we said:

• The Government has rightly identified the life sciences as a sector than needs increased access to long-term patient capital
• The BIA welcomes the FCA's work on increasing access to patient capital but has concerns that it is too focussed on infrastructure and real estate rather than innovative enterprises
• The FCA should work to create more opportunities for retail investment in biotech SMEs, to provide real asset value growth opportunities to consumers, and seek to balance consumer protection with consumer demand for investment opportunities in the UK’s innovative sectors
• Collective investment vehicles offer many advantages for those wishing to gain exposure to alternative assets like biotech and the BIA would welcome more vehicles available to retail investors
• The Government and FCA should look at policy levers to increase the number of life science specialist collective investment vehicles. Crucially, these need the scale to be able to follow their money to build successful businesses, and scale to be able to attract large institutional investment, from pension funds and sovereign wealth funds, for example
• The BIA supports the permitted links rules change to a) allow investment in illiquid assets as long as liquidity is maintained at the fund level and b) clarifying that assets need not be priced daily. These will help to remove barriers to pension fund investment in patient capital