BIA welcomes the UK Government's Pensions Investment Review

London, 29 May 2025 – The BioIndustry Association (BIA) welcomes the UK Government’s release of its final report of the Pensions Investment Review. The document outlines notable reforms intended to enhance pension fund performance, whilst also increasing domestic investment. The proposals outlined in the report are a major step towards realising BIA’s long-held goal of increasing investment from UK pension funds into UK life sciences.

Key highlights from the report include:

1. Leveraging the British Business Bank to attract pension fund investments into infrastructure and high-growth companies.
2. Reforms to the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS), which manages £400 billion in assets, aimed at enhancing investment outcomes.
3. Legislation that will lead to a bigger market with more efficient funds through consolidation among DC pension schemes.
4. Introduction of reserve powers which enable the government to set quantitative baseline targets for pension schemes to invest in a broader range of private assets, including in the UK.

Steve Bates OBE, CEO of the BIA, said:

We welcome the Government's Pensions Investment Review report, which rightly says the pensions industry must reform to deliver better returns for savers and drive economic growth. The UK pensions industry should be allocating more to UK life sciences as it is a key growth sector identified by the Government, has strategic significance to the nation as the pandemic showed, and delivers better returns for pension savers over the long term.

The Government is right to take reserve powers to make this happen if the UK pensions market does not evolve itself to act more like, and make the returns of, international gold-standard funds benefitting workers in other countries like Canada, America and Australia. Venture capital is the driving force of innovative industries that will drive better returns and economic growth. It is just not acceptable that an excessive focus on cost over value is preventing our pensions industry from investing in Britain’s future.

The reforms align with the goals of the Mansion House Accord, where 17 major pension schemes have committed to diversifying their asset allocations into private assets, including UK-based investments. The document is significant as data from the British Business Bank shows that life sciences venture funds outperform the wider market in realising value for investors. Further analysis by Oliver Wyman suggests that UK pension savers could see retirement pots grow by 7–12% through even modest allocations to VC and growth equity funds.