What the Trade and National Security strategies mean for UK life sciences

In the second instalment of our blog series on new government policy, Lewis Miles, Policy and Public Affairs Manager, and Linda Bedenik, Senior Policy and Public Affairs Manager at BIA, examine the UK's Trade and National Security strategies and what they mean for biotech.

Following the designation of the eight priority sectors of the Industrial Strategy, the government published a sector plan for each of them. This, in concert with the launch of numerous other plans and strategies, has led to a glut of new policy relevant to UK biotech. Here, we delve deeper into both the UK Trade and National Security strategies, and investigate what they mean for the UK life science sector.  

Government launches UK Trade Strategy  

In June of this year, the government published the UK’s Trade Strategy, which delivers another welcome step in placing life sciences at the heart of UK economic policy. The strategy outlines government’s approach to free and fair trade, and intends to stimulate economic growth through targeted business support and robust international relationships. The Trade Strategy will work in concert with the Industrial Strategy, supporting and strengthening domestic businesses to position them for future success on the global stage.  

Crucially, the Trade Strategy targets the eight growth-driving sectors identified in the Industrial Strategy, which include life sciences as well as engineering biology under the “digital and technologies sector”.  The strategy will also work in tandem with the Life Science Sector Plan itself, which saw government commit to enhancing practical support for UK biotech in order to help the sector flourish internationally. Actions to this end – such as the tackling of sector-specific market barriers, and the sector-informed renewal of key relationships with the EU and US – link directly to the Trade Strategy, and cement life science’s position at the heart of national and international economic policy.  

The way in which our members – and by extension, the life science sector as a whole – interacts and engages with international trade and its associated policies is very broad. Those who focus on the production of drugs or therapies will wrangle with export and tariffs, whereas those who are service providers may more regularly contend with the mutual recognition of qualifications and the adequate exchange of data. Even those with a less direct international focus may form international collaborations that rely heavily on immigration and worker mobility.  

With this in mind, many of the policies and commitments outlined in the Trade Strategy are highly relevant to our members. The strategy commits to supporting businesses with the potential to deliver serious economic value, particularly scale-ups and established mid-sized firms. In addition to supporting these sectors, government pledges to ‘building deep expertise and contacts in these markets’, and to deliver cross-government plans – both of which are essential for the success of innovative industries like life science.  

In addition, the strategy pledged that the government will: 

• Pursue more mutual recognition agreements (MRAs), with a special focus on those countries and fields with most potential to boost growth. 

• Launch the Ricardo Fund, which will support UK regulators to remove regulatory barriers for UK businesses trading abroad. 

• Launch a new ‘Supply Chain Centre’ that government will lead in conjunction with business to increase the resilience of critical supply chains,  

• Pursue new and improved trade agreements, which include ongoing talks and tariff reviews, to reduce barriers and expand market access.  

These announcements are key wins for the life sciences, and directly reflect several of the policy recommendations we made in our Trade Strategy consultation response.  We advised that government teams and agencies should cooperate, coordinate, and be upskilled in the business models of innovative industries. Additionally, in our response, we also stressed that multilateral coalitions and mutual recognition agreements should be used to promote the convergence of global standards and regulations – recommendations that are clearly reflected in the strategy. 

As these plans move towards implementation, we look forward to continuing our close engagement with both the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) and the Office for Life Sciences (OLS). The BIA regularly works with both bodies to advocate for UK biotech and fine-tune policy, through a variety of events and roundtables, written submissions, and ongoing working relationships. We will utilise each of these to make sure that the plans are implemented in such a way that delivers for UK biotech.         

Plans outlined for national security  

Also published in June, the UK's National Security Strategy 2025 sets out a strategic framework for rebuilding sovereign capabilities to ensure the UK's security at home and abroad. While life sciences and biotech are not a major focus of the wide-ranging strategy, anticipating and preparing for risks that emerge from scientific and technological advances in biology and AI is part of its stated strategic and biosecurity context. 

 The strategy represents ‘a hardening and a sharpening’ of the Government’s approach to national security across all areas of policy, nationally and internationally. Abroad, this will manifest as increased cooperation and competition (and confrontation), with both traditional and new allies, through trade and diplomacy, science and technology, defence and trade. 

At home, the focus lies on making the UK a harder target and building our resilience to future threats. This includes the 2021 National Security and Investment Act and the Investment Security Unit that screen investments made into UK companies working, among other, in synthetic biology and AI. The Act allows cross-government review, mitigation and prevention of investments that are deemed a threat to national security. The strategy commits to maintaining the Act as a central tool. A consultation on updating the definitions covering the 17 sensitive areas subject to mandatory notification under the Act was announced in the Industrial Strategy.    

Our sector has an important part to play in securing the UK’s resilience to biological and health threats. The strategy announced investment of over £1 billion to bolster the UK’s defences against biological incidents, accidents and attacks. This includes a new state-of-the-art facility in Harlow to house the UK Health Security Agency’s (UKHSA) new high-containment laboratory facilities. The new facility, the largest of its kind in Europe, will form part of a new network of National Biosecurity Centres to strengthen the UK's response to emerging public health threats. The new site is expected to open in stages, beginning in the mid-2030s and concluding by 2038.   

 The investment into a new National Biosecurity Centre comes shortly after the £520m life sciences manufacturing investment announced in the Spending Review to support UK-based diagnostic, therapeutic and vaccine manufacturing facilities. This will help strengthen UK supply chains by onshoring critical capacity.  

 The strategy also announces a forthcoming report on the Biological Security Strategy to set out the progress made, including on a National Action Plan on confronting Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). We welcome the Government's commitment to progress in these areas. They are aligned with BIA's recommendations to the 2022  Biological Security Strategy consultation response, where we highlighted the UK's role in the global response to AMR, and the opportunities and challenges of emerging platform technologies such as engineering biology and genomics.  

 BIA continue to work closely with Government on biosecurity, including through our role on the Responsible Innovation Advisory Panel (RIAP). BIA is also working with government security experts to provide tailored advice and support for our members. You can find a suite of resources on our website and sign up to our Secure Innovation webinar on 11 September.