âť“WHAT HAPPENED: The United Kingdom faces a potential loss in pharmaceutical investment as the socialized National Health Service (NHS) reduces spending on drugs while squandering funds on waste and
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: U.S. drugmaker Merck & Co. Inc., Oxford professor Sir John Bell, and various pharmaceutical CEOs.
đź“ŤWHEN & WHERE:
đź’¬KEY QUOTE: “They’re not going to do any more investing in the UK.” – Sir John Bell
🎯IMPACT: Potential relocation of pharmaceutical operations and economic implications for the UK.
The United Kingdom is at risk of losing critical pharmaceutical investment due to the socialized National Health Service (NHS) reducing spending on drugs, accompanied by widespread mismanagement and wasteful resource allocation. The warning follows U.S. drugmaker Merck & Co. Inc., known as MSD in Britain, scrapping its planned £1 billion (~$1.36 billion) London research center and sparking concerns about the future of the country’s life sciences sector.
Oxford professor Sir John Bell, a noted figure in Britain’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout, told the British media that NHS spending on pharmaceuticals has plummeted from 15 percent of its healthcare budget a decade ago to just nine percent today. “The rest of the world, the OECD, are sitting between 14 percent and 20 percent,” Bell said, referring to the intergovernmental Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, comprised of 38 relatively high-income countries, including the U.S. Bell revealed that after speaking with several pharmaceutical company CEOs, “they’re all in the same space. And that is: they’re not going to do any more investing in the UK.”
Merck’s withdrawal, which will result in the loss of 125 science jobs, was attributed to Britain’s lack of progress in life sciences investment and “overall undervaluation of innovative medicines and vaccines by successive UK governments.” In addition to Merck, AstraZeneca has paused its plans to invest 200 million pounds (~$271.2 million) into a British research facility in Cambridge, having already abandoned a project earmarked for Liverpool in January.
Notably, the NHS and the Department of Health and Social Care waste vast sums of money yearly, much greater than the loss of investment from Merck and AstraZeneca. For instance, an “extraordinary” ÂŁ15 billion was wasted on unused and unusable COVID supplies, including personal protective equipment and vaccines, and an estimated ÂŁ10 billion (~$16.6 billion) was wasted on a new IT system that was so badly botched it had to be abandoned. Such high-profile failures come on top of endemic waste year-on-year, estimated at around ÂŁ10 billion, much of it squandered on recruitment agencies, consultants, and inflated contracts.
Millions of pounds a year are also spent on internal staff organizations engaged in woke activism, such as promoting International Pronouns Day, so-called “Pride crafting,” and an event focused on “Embracing your Afro/Curly hair.”
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