Recent months have not been a smooth ride for the UK life sciences market.
In September Merck, or MSD, as it is often referred to in Europe, abandoned plans for a £1 billion (€1.1 billion) research hub in London. The 195,000-square-foot (18,000-square-metre) Belgrove House project, already under construction, was meant to employ 800 people and showcase long-term investment in UK life sciences. Instead, MSD said it would discontinue discovery work in Britain, citing years of weak support for innovative medicines. During the same month, AstraZeneca also announced that it had paused a planned £200 million (€228 million) investment in Cambridge, blaming “increasingly challenging” conditions in the United Kingdom for drug development.
One of these testing conditions revolves around the UK government’s truculent stance on medicine payment schemes, or clawback rates, as they are called. The rates at which companies are required to pay back a share of their revenue
