The modern Industrial Strategy is informing the UK government’s decisions in the Budget.
The UK government’s new Autumn Budget delivers a mixed prospect for life sciences, according to industry experts. While it promises to back AI integration and company scale-ups, with additional commitment to boosting manufacturing capacity, many firms are set to be hit by increased tax rates.
Jane Wall, Managing Director of the UK BioIndustry Association (BIA), said: “Backing scale-ups in life sciences, biotech and AI will drive economic growth and deliver innovative new products that will improve both health outcomes and global sustainability.” For instance, MHRA is conducting AI-assisted pilot initiatives to facilitate faster clinical trials.
Yet Wall cautioned that “increases to business rates on expensive workspaces mean that life science companies “will be unfairly and disproportionately affected, given the need for expensive laboratory facilities alongside office space.”
The UK’s modern Industrial Strategy is helping shape government plans for the life sciences sector, including decisions about infrastructure. The Life Sciences Innovation Manufacturing Fund (LSIMF) affirmed to boost manufacturing capacity, noted Louise Dobson, Partner (Commercial Disputes) and Global Head of the Health and Life Sciences Sector Group at law firm Addleshaw Goddard, on LinkedIn.
increases to business rates on expensive workspaces mean that life science companies will be unfairly and disproportionately affected, given the need for expensive laboratory facilities alongside office space”
This strategy has allocated £30 million for a new facility in Darlington “to accelerate the development of novel RNA therapies from labs to market, including to help tackle cancer, heart conditions and infectious diseases.”
More broadly, Dame Chi Onwurah, Science, Innovation and Technology Committee Chair, voiced her disappointment on the Budget’s lack of “specific measures to address the regional disparities in productivity, R&D and venture capital investment that we’ve heard can really hinder the growth of science and tech businesses outside the so-called Golden Triangle.”
Furthermore, decisions made about the Autumn Budget could hinder the UK’s talent, according to Sir John Lazar, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering. He warned the new surcharge on international student fees delivers “a negative signal about the importance of future innovators. Falling overseas enrolments threaten the sector’s stability and could worsen the UK’s chronic skills shortages—especially in STEM.”
BIA concluded that as “domestic and global headwinds continue to create significant challenges and uncertainty” for life sciences, governments must lead by “investing in and demonstrating confidence in national champion sectors, rather than raising their operating costs.”