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The UK has carved out a leadership
position in life sciences, encompassing pharmaceuticals, medical biotechnology
and medical technology. It has a long track record of translating basic science
into commercially successful products - more than one in five of the world’s
leading medicines was discovered and developed in the UK. Biotechnology,
healthcare and pharmaceutical industries in the UK contribute over £23 billion a
year in revenue, employing more than 400,000 people.
Ranking second globally after the
US in medical biotechnology, UK companies account for 45 percent of new
biotechnology drugs in late-stage clinical trials in Europe. According to Ernst
and Young, it has the most drugs in all stages of clinical development,
excelling in key areas such as stratified and regenerative medicine. The
pharmaceutical sector invested £4.5 billion in R&D in the UK in 2007 alone,
representing over a quarter of all UK business R&D.
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Research powerhouse
A vital ingredient in the UK’s
life science success is its world-class science base of globally recognised
universities and research centres. The UK government invests continually in UK
research, and has ramped up its funding over the past decade to reach almost £6
billion per year by 2010. To further optimise graduate skills in areas such as
mathematics and other industry-relevant competencies, the Society of Biology
will accredit undergraduate bioscience degrees from 2010 onward.
The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) is the largest nationally funded health
services purchaser in the world, employing 1.5 million. It receives over £90
billion each year, and is also the biggest UK customer for medicines. The UK
Clinical Research Collaboration is a partnership that harnesses the NHS’ power
for clinical research: the NHS offers life science companies a vast patient
database for clinical trials and investigations.
The government established the Office for Life Sciences (OLS) led by Lord
Drayson, Minister for Science and Innovation, in 2009. One function of the OLS
is to ensure that the NHS continues to champion innovation through its
purchasing of groundbreaking and cost-effective medicines and technologies.
Technology boom
The UK’s medical technology sector
employs nearly 50,000 in just over 2,000 companies, most of which (85 percent)
are small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The rapidly expanding UK medical
devices market is the fourth largest market in Europe (valued at around £7.2
billon) behind Germany, France and Italy, according to Association of British
Healthcare Industries (ABHI).
“We believe that the UK represents the best hub to build a world-class medical
device company,” says Sensys Medical CEO, Robert Curry, adding that the UK
provides crucial access to markets like China. US company Sensys Medical
specialises in non-invasive blood glucose testing, and recently relocated its
world headquarters to the UK. The company has engaged with the UK Diabetes
Research Network (DRN) Coordinating Centre based at Imperial College, London,
which will provide a clinical trial site for regulatory approval.
Despite international economic
uncertainty, West Midlands region of the UK remains an important ICT hub, and is
particularly strong in medical technologies. These factors attracted pioneering
Portuguese company Alert Life Sciences Computing to launch its UK operation at
Birmingham Business Park in the West Midlands. The company develops touch-screen
technology to manage hospital records. |
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Funding
As elsewhere, funding for UK
biotechnology from both public and private investors is somewhat lower in the
current economy. However, the UK system boasts a wide variety of funding sources
for biomedical research, including major charities and collaborative funding
initiatives.
The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) is the UK’s
principal basic and strategic biosciences research funding agency, and the
Medical Research Council (MRC) covers biomedical research in all major disease
areas. Another important funding body is the Wellcome Trust, the UK’s largest
charity. It funds innovative biomedical research worth over £600 million each
year. For example, funding over the last ten years from the Wellcome Trust
helped Dr Helen McShane develop the first vaccine against tuberculosis to come
to clinical trials since the BCG in 1921, offering the possibility of a vaccine
widely available by 2014. The Trust is also the primary funder of the
internationally renowned Cambridge’s Sanger Institute, which focuses on genome
research.
High-technology industries cluster around the universities in Oxford, Cambridge
and London, known as the Golden Triangle. Home to regulatory agencies, high
profile investors and financial markets, London is Europe’s largest clinical
trials centre. North East and North West England are also major life science
hubs, as is Scotland, where Dolly the sheep was cloned.
Stem cells
An important UK Government ruling
means that animal-human hybrid embryos can be used in stem cell research. Now
embryo screening to create babies with suitable transplant material for an ill
sibling is allowed.
October 2008 saw the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM)
and the UK’s MRC sign an agreement helping UK and Californian businesses
to get joint funding for stem cell research, paving the way to potential
stem cell-based therapies.
Britain’s international importance in stem cell science was cemented by
Pfizer’s decision to spend up to £41 million ($60 million) on a research
centre in Cambridge, despite wider pressure in the pharmaceutical industry
to cut spending. The US-based company, which will set up a similar
facility in Massachusetts, aims to “develop a new generation of
regenerative medicines ... that may prevent disability, repair failing
organs and treat degenerative diseases”. Rod MacKenzie, Pfizer’s head of
worldwide research, called the move, “one of the most significant things
we have ever done”.
GSK, along with AstraZeneca and Roche, joined forces with the UK
government investing over £1 million in Stem Cells for Safer Medicines, a
collaboration to use human embryonic stem cells to screen new drugs for
liver toxicity, reducing animal experimentation.
Exciting stem cell research to repair bone and cartilage is underway
around the UK. Southampton University researchers use stem cells extracted
from a patient’s marrow to plug bone gaps caused by disease or trauma.
Mixed with a biocompatible scaffold, the cells integrate with the
patient’s bone, promoting natural re-growth.
Keele University Professor Alicia El Haj uses stem cells from patients,
multiplies them in the laboratory and injects them into joints to repair
cartilage damaged in accidents. She aims to control stem cell delivery by
combining them with magnetic nanoparticles. “We can then use a magnet to
move the stem cells around the body and control what they do there,” she
adds.
Meanwhile the Wellcome Trust is funding a Scottish team led by the
Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service (SNBTS), to test embryos left
over following IVF treatment to find those in the universally-accepted
‘O-negative’ blood donor group. The scientists have £3 million for a
three-year trial attempt to develop synthetic human blood. Single stem
cells from human embryos have been developed into mature blood cells in
the laboratory. Dr Ted Bianco, the Wellcome Trust’s Director of Technology
Transfer, hailed this “exciting and ground-breaking approach.”
Elsewhere in the UK, Cambridge-based company Stem Cell Sciences is to be
bought by US firm StemCells for just under £3 million. The move safeguards
groundbreaking stem cell work, along with many jobs in the UK and
Australia. StemCells also indicated that it plans to expand the Cambridge
UK operation.
Inward investment
Funding is often available for
innovative companies, including those based outside the UK. The new
‘breakthrough technology company’ named Cyclofluidic launched in Welwyn
Garden City, Hertfordshire to accelerate drug discovery is a US-Belgian
joint venture. The collaboration between Pfizer’s British unit and UCB
from Brussels benefited from a £1.05 million grant from the UK
government’s Technology Strategy Board, which stimulates innovation and
invests in projects delivering new technology-based projects and services. |
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Peter Luke, Senior Director,
Worldwide Business Development at Pfizer said, “This is a great example of how
public private partnerships can provide innovative technologies to speed
medicines to market. We are impressed by the way the Technology Strategy Board
has initiated a novel and creative deal structure.” UCB merged with the UK’s
largest biotechnology company, Celltech, in 2004. In 2003 Celltech spent £79
million on UK R&D - by 2007 the UCB investment in UK-based R&D exceeded £170
million.
The UK is an excellent launch pad
for companies moving into European territory. For instance, US company Entra
Health Systems (EHS) will launch a groundbreaking blood-sugar testing device in
Europe from a base in the North East. Sunderland will provide a marketing base
for the world’s first Bluetooth-enabled glucose meter. Entra’s Chairman, John
Hendel, said: “The talent, culture, and resources located in the North of
England will accommodate our company’s growth and ambitious business
objectives.” With 2.3 million people living with diabetes, the UK also offers
access to a large pool of patients.
“The talent, culture, and
resources located in the North of England will accommodate our company’s growth
and ambitious business objectives.”
John Hendel, chairman, Entra Health Systems
Asian companies are also
increasing their UK presence. Nanjing, China-based antibody manufacturer Nanjing
Chuanbo Biotech Ltd has launched its UK subsidiary in Gateshead in North East
England, named Signalway Antibody (SAB) UK Co. Ltd. The company has been working
closely with Cels and North East Proteome Analysis Facility (NEPAF) to develop
advanced healthcare products for new and emerging markets such as personalised
medicine. “I’m impressed with the level of support found here in the North East
of England,” said Hu Yunlong, General Manager of Nanjing Chuanbo Biotech and SAB
UK. “The pioneering development opportunities with Cels combined with
state-of-the-art facilities found at the International Business Centre, make the
region seem like the ideal location to expand our operations into Europe.”
The area around Cambridge is another popular base, due to its world-famous
university, the Cambridge biotechnology cluster and great transport links to
Europe via Stansted Airport. Life science instrumentation company Accuri
Cytometers, based in Michigan, US, has opened a new European operations centre
in St Ives, Cambridgeshire. Another US firm, Novus Biologicals also chose
Cambridge for its new European distribution hub.
AstraZeneca’s global biologics unit, MedImmune, is to open a new biologics R&D
facility, further expanding its Cambridge R&D base, which is central to the
company’s global research activity. Incorporating the former Cambridge Antibody
Technology business, MedImmune has one of the largest and most diverse biologics
product pipelines in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, and aims to
deliver one new biologic product every year from 2013.
MedImmune’s neighbour Pfizer has also announced two separate expansions in
Cambridge.
The UK’s commitment to excellence in life sciences is stronger than ever. Moves
such as the Government’s recent creation of a UK Innovation Investment Fund to
leverage private investment and create a £150 million 10-year venture capital
fund for technology-based businesses are typical of this commitment.
Given the UK’s many strengths, the emergence of the UK Life Sciences Super
Cluster seems inevitable.
UK SECTOR REPORT by Helen
Carmichael
CONTACTS
UK Government Office for Life Sciences
www.dius.gov.uk/ols
National Health Service
www.nhs.uk
CELS
Tel: +44-(0)191-215 5025
Web: www.celsgroup.com
Regulatory affairs:
European Medicines Evaluation
Agency
Tel: +44-(0)20-7418 8400
Web: www.emea.europa.eu
Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency
Tel: +44-(0)20-7084 2000
Web: www.mhra.gov.uk
Industry associations:
The Association of the British
Pharmaceutical Industry
Tel: +44-(0)870-890 4333
Web: www.abpi.org.uk
BioIndustries Association
Tel: +44-(0)20-7565 7190
Web: www.bioindustry.org
Association of British Healthcare Industries
Tel: +44-(0)20-7960 4360
Web: www.abhi.org.uk
Funding
Biotechnology and Biological
Sciences Research Council
Tel: +44-(0)1793-413200
Web: www.bbsrc.ac.uk
The Medical Research Council
Tel: +44-(0)20-7636 5422
Web: www.mrc.ac.uk
The Wellcome Trust
Tel: +44-(0)20-7611 8888
Web: www.wellcome.ac.uk |
