BIA submission to the House of Lords inquiry into the UK’s ability to predict and prevent medicine supply issues
BIA has responded to a House of Lords inquiry into the UK’s ability to predict and prevent medicine supply issues. In our submission, we highlighted that:
- The medicines supply chain is inherently global and the UK is highly reliant on overseas production; both of active pharmaceutical ingredients, excipients and other components.
- Although global supply chains are unavoidable, UK resilience to supply issues can be improved by increasing UK-based medicines developers, producers and manufacturers.
- Approximately 70% of medicines in development globally are produced by smaller companies, as opposed to larger established companies, and many specialist manufacturers are SMEs, ensuring the UK is a fertile place for them is key.
- The UK has a highly skilled workforce across life sciences and pharmaceutical manufacturing, with world-class expertise in research, development, and advanced therapies. However, gaps remain in key areas that affect supply chain resilience.
- Capital funding gaps compared to the US, high operating costs, limited tax and investment incentives, lengthy trial set-up times, and dual batch release testing reduce the UK’s competitiveness as a company scale-up environment and manufacturing base.
- Policies to grow the UK life sciences sector, including small, medium and large companies, combined with continued investment in innovative medicines is crucial to increasing medicines supply chain resilience for the UK.
