Message from Dr. Aphrodite Spanou (Director - Healthcare, Life Sciences & Chemicals, Department for International Trade)
The astonishing power of the life sciences sector has emerged as a bright light in darkness during SARS-CoV-2. The pandemic has further elevated the role of pharmaceuticals and wider life sciences sectors and today the sector is on its front foot. New collaborations with academia, biotech, platform companies, government regulators and data providers were already taking place before COVID-19, but the pandemic accelerated time, attention, and capital to these types of collaborations. I am pleased to say that the UK is ideally positioned to showcase its strengths in this field with outstanding science and a globally successful life sciences sector.
The UK’s research and innovation response to COVID-19 has demonstrated how the country has become a global centre for innovation and partnerships with reputed players internationally. The UK has made clear its intention is to create a genuinely unique operating environment through its Life Sciences Vision that outlines our ambitions for the sector over the next decade. The four major aspects of the life Sciences Vision has been to build on the UK’s world class science and research capabilities and new ways of working from COVID-19 to tackling future diseases; make the NHS the country’s most powerful driver of innovation and create an outstanding business environment for Life Science companies.
The UK Life Sciences sector has been highly collaborative, with a recent survey of 15 companies by ABPI identifying over 1,000 links between academia and the pharmaceutical industry. In 2020/21, India retained its position as the UK’s second largest source of investment in terms of number of projects, with 99 new projects last year alone. On Clinical Research, the UK is one of the top three destinations for delivery of commercial early phase trials and delivered 12% of all global trials for innovative cell and gene therapies in 2019. India is living up to its name of being the “Pharmacy of the world” with a strong network of 3,000 drug companies and ~10,500 manufacturing units. The market is estimated at £30.4 billion in 2021 and likely to reach £47 billion by 2024 and further expand to reach ~£86 to £94 billion by 2030. With a strong manufacturing footprint in India matched with UK’s strengths in Research and Development and Innovation there is no better time than now to build relations.
I am proud to present some of our UK companies and our National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) who are joining this trade mission with the ambition to collaborate with India and seize the momentum to be global leaders. The companies are a blend of Clinical research, Process manufacturing and Nutraceuticals. They bring an offer bundled with UK’s Clinical Research, Genomic and Health Data capabilities and aim to create highly effective and efficient partnerships to test and trial new technologies for the most important healthcare challenges.
Over the next decade, the UK will unequivocally champion open, competitive free trade and work to support the Life Sciences sector. They will deliver this through an ambitious programme including a future Free Trade Agreement with India. Through the Department for International Trade’s extensive trade promotion activities, we will continue to promote and expand trade opportunities for UK Life Sciences with our Indian counterparts while strengthening the “Living Bridge” between the two countries.
Message from Alan Gemmell, OBE (Her Majesty's Trade Commissioner, South Asia & British Deputy High Commissioner - Western India)
I would like to welcome you all to the third India-UK biopharma and nutraceutical mission to India.
The response to Covid-19 has demonstrated how the healthcare and life sciences sectors can respond at pace to develop life-saving products to meet global demand. The UK has played a leading role in vaccine and drug discovery, with India matching it with its manufacturing prowess.
Our economic relationship is strong with trade of over £18bn in 2020, supporting nearly half a million jobs. India is already the UK’s second largest source of investment in terms of number of projects. During a virtual meeting on 4th May, Prime Minister Johnson and Prime Minister Modi agreed a 2030 Roadmap, which will provide a framework for UK-India relations. This includes trade, science and technology.
The package of commercial deals announced comprised of £533m of investment into the UK from India and trade export deals from UK to India worth about £446m. These included a £240m investment by the Serum Institute of India for clinical trials, vaccine development and research. It also covered export deals from:
- Morningside Pharmaceuticals for researching, developing and licencing new pharma products;
- Bio Products Laboratory, who export biopharmaceutical finished products for rare bleeding disorders; and
- Eagle Genomics, who are engaged in the micro-biomics and genomics segments with Indian corporates (worth £12 million and the creation of 165 UK jobs).
The UK and Indian Governments are committed to deepening our economic relationship through the launch of an Enhanced Trade Partnership (ETP) and we have confirmed our intent to negotiate a free trade agreement (FTA), with a view to doubling UK-India trade over the next decade.
The UK is at the forefront of global scientific exploration, invention and innovation. The highly productive science base in the UK is supported by the Government with a commitment to increase R&D spending to 2.4% of GDP by 2027. The UK is home to global life sciences clusters with a strong ecosystem of investors, customers, collaborators, supply chains, and innovation partners.
Through the India-UK Biopharmaceutical mission, we have selected some of the UK’s best companies and entrepreneurs and they have expressed their interest to work closely with India in shaping the future of the bio-pharma sector.
I encourage our Indian colleagues to utilise this opportunity to discuss their future strategies and areas for collaboration. The Department for International Trade team in India are ready to create networking opportunities that will enable positive and long-lasting relationships between UK and Indian companies. Life sciences will be one of the great drivers of growth in the twenty first century and I hope that India-UK collaborations are strong examples of this success.
Message from Chris Minchell (International Deputy Director - UK Vaccines Task Force)
Chris is the International Deputy Director in the UK Vaccines Taskforce - working to secure access to CoViD vaccines for the UK population and to ensure equitable global access as quickly as possible to help bring the pandemic to an end and restore trade and travel. Chris was previously Deputy Head of Rules of Origin, Tariffs, Customs and the Border in the Trade, Investment and Negotiations Directorate for the Department Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) – working on setting the departmental strategy for customs, tariffs and border issues in relation to EU Exit scenarios. He was also responsible for overseeing the design and implementation of the UK Global Tariff for non-agricultural market access (including manufacturing, Critical National Infrastructure, and climate change). Chris joined BEIS in March 2018 after 10 years in the Home Office, covering several high-profile roles in Border Force, the Office for Security and Counter Terrorism and the UK Border Agency. Chris’s last Home Office role was as a Deputy Director in Border Force within its Policy, Strategy, Planning & Policy Unit.
Chris has a degree in Psychology, Philosophy and Social Sciences from the University of Manchester. He lives just outside of London with his wife and their cat.
