In the UK's Industrial Strategy, life sciences is one of eight high-growth sectors (the IS-8) with the potential to drive economic growth – while also supporting economic security and resilience, net zero and regional growth. Tailored sector plans are being developed in discussion with industry and last week saw the publication of the plan for life sciences.

The Life Sciences Sector Plan ("the plan"), developed alongside the UK's 10-Year Health Plan issued earlier this month, is focused around a central vision – for the UK to become the leading life sciences economy in Europe by 2030 and the third globally by 2035. The strategy for achieving this is built upon activities to enable research and development (R&D), provide an attractive market for investment and support innovation and skills development.

Our Life Sciences team take a closer look at the key areas covered in the plan, how these are designed to transform the sector and what this could mean for businesses – particularly the identified 'frontier industries' of pharmaceuticals and medical technologies. With a clear emphasis on innovation and digital transformation, the plan is closely aligned with initiatives set out in the Digital and Technologies Sector Plan.

A strategy to unlock the potential of life sciences

The Life Sciences Sector Plan seeks to 'supercharge' life sciences and realise the ambition to make the UK the third most important life sciences economy globally. It's stated that it will be supported over the lifetime of the Spending Review by government funding of over £2 billion, alongside funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). Co-ordination across sectors is seen as also playing an important role – and the plan has been developed in consultation with industry and alongside the UK 10-Year Health Plan to foster collaboration.

It's predicted that the life sciences sector could grow by £41 billion by 2035 if the current rate of growth and development trends continue. The UK has a strong track record in innovation and the plan commits to "supporting innovation from lab bench to bedside" and "strengthening our clinical trials ecosystem" to help make the UK the most attractive place to develop and deploy new treatments and technologies.

The sector is described as facing a number of challenges – including in relation to commercialising discoveries, an ageing population with an increasing rate of multi-morbidities, the speed of set up to approval of clinical trials, access to capital investment and increased global competition. Working in partnership between science, industry, government and policy is seen as key to meeting these challenges. In addition, there is a commitment to embracing three major shifts set out in the Labour Party's pre-election manifesto in 2024:

  • From hospital to community: enabling care closer to home, supported by new diagnostics and digital tools.
  • From analogue to digital: embedding data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve outcomes and reduce pressure on frontline staff.
  • From sickness to prevention: using genomics, early detection, and personalised medicine to keep people healthier for longer.

The three interconnected pillars for growing life sciences

This Life Sciences Sector Plan focuses on three core, interconnected pillars to support growth, innovation, and better health outcomes.

1. Enabling world class R&D

Ahead of publishing the Life Sciences Sector Plan a commitment has already been made to supporting long-term, ten-year funding for certain R&D activities – as diverse as human health and cutting-edge computing. This seeks to give long-term certainty to researchers and industry, supporting opportunities for partnerships in important R&D work that will help growth the economy and further attract investment into the UK.

The sector plan further builds on this commitment, stating that the Government will continue to invest at scale in discovery science to ensure that the UK remains a "bastion of early-stage science". One example here is the 10-year funding allocation for the Laboratory of Molecular Biology to support pioneering research and develop global talent.

To support the development of new medicines and medical technologies the Government plans to establish pre-clinical translational infrastructure – bringing together cutting-edge human disease modelling capabilities and data – and develop integrated translational networks in key areas of health research, backed by £30 million in funding.

Actions are also set out to improve the speed and capacity to deliver commercial trials and research to benefit both patients and the economy. This includes a commitment to reduce the set-up time for commercial interventional clinical trials to fewer than 150 days by March 2026.

This will be welcome news to business and patients. Overall, the economic impact of making the UK a more friendly environment for conducting clinical trials will be interesting to see as while that certainly may be a boost to service providers such as clinical research organisations – will it lead to a larger investment in R&D in the UK and companies moving business here, or just more clinical trials being carried out in the UK? Either way, faster clinical trial set-up is 'good' for society and aligns with the goal around innovation.

Efforts will also focus on accelerating the transition from ideation to commercialisation and helping research studies to progress quicker and become more affordable. In addition, the Government intends to build a globally competitive data ecosystem to attract R&D into the UK and grow the UK's data and genomics capabilities. The investment of up to £600 million into creating a Health Data Research Service that harnesses AI to unite genomic diagnostic and clinical data at population scale is a key step towards this ambition.

The clear interest shown in data and data processing is interesting and continues the trend over recent years that data, and accordingly data protection law, is ever more important.

2. Making the UK an outstanding place in which to start, grow, scale and invest

To help improve the UK's attractiveness for investment in this sector, the plan sets out actions across five key areas: access to finance, skills, manufacturing, net zero and high-value partnerships.

Access to finance is an area addressed across a number of the cross-sectoral plans in the Industrial Strategy. For life sciences, the focus is on the scaling and retention of UK life sciences companies – making it easier for them to access private sector capital and gain support with exporting outside of the UK.

The Chancellor has already launched the Life Sciences Innovative Manufacturing Fund (LSIMF), which will provide up to £520 million in capital grants for investment in the manufacture of human medicines and medical technology (including diagnostics, and MedTech products).

A looming question is, will the stick of US tariffs prove stronger than the carrot of UK capital, and will any further decisions on US tariffs impact the UK's plans as the US also tries to pull manufacturing on its shores.

The sector will also benefit from the British Business Bank expanding its investment capacity to £25.6 billion, with £4 billion allocated for growth capital in priority sectors. This will enable greater funds and direct investment into high growth life sciences companies.

There are also actions set out to build on the existing training and skills system to ensure the sector continues to benefit from the talents of a diverse and highly skilled workforce. Work will be undertaken to fully understand the skills need of the sector, ensuring training and qualifications are tailored to fulfil those needs. Additionally, there will be a focus on developing specialist AI and entrepreneurial skills, plus efforts to ensure the visa system enables the movement of international talent.

The Government will also continue to invest in manufacturing innovation to attract globally mobile investment into the UK. This will be supported by increasing the availability of capital grants to support such investments and through, for example, the Sustainable Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Programme's investments and activity across the Catapults and network of manufacturing innovation centres.

Efforts will also align with the UK's broader commitments to net zero and support the development of high-value partnerships to develop and deploy new medicines and technologies.

It will be interesting to see progress on not just scaling but, specifically, on retaining UK life sciences companies in the UK, as there has long been a trend of UK companies going to the US to list or being acquired by overseas companies. Keeping more companies in the UK will be a tremendous win for the UK and support the sector plan's wider aims around cross-regional and cross-sectoral collaboration.

3. Driving health innovation and NHS reform

The plan has been developed alongside the UK's 10-year Health Plan to ensure alignment between health and growth objectives. The intention is that the sector – and the medicines, medical technologies and diagnostics it produces – will underpin health breakthroughs and, ultimately, support better outcomes for patients, as well as provide a thriving research economy.

A key action here is removing potential barriers to market entry through faster, risk-proportionate and predictable routes to regulatory approval. The plan details additional support, with more investment, for the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and a reformed medical devices regulatory framework, for example. There is also an action set to work with agencies and regulatory bodies to ensure patients in England are able to access medicines three to six months faster.

This will be welcome news to business as, broadly speaking, faster market entry means higher sales, as the sooner a product is on the market, the longer of its remaining intellectual property (IP) protection period it has remaining in which to sell without competition. This is particularly crucial for pharmaceuticals companies as that is the period in which to recoup R&D costs and gather income for future R&D, before lower costs generics or biosimilars enter the market that can compete at much lower costs, having not had to pay for that R&D.

Recognising the importance of ensuring patients have access to safe, clinically and cost-effective medicines and medical technologies, the plan discusses the need for innovation priorities and pathways. The aim here is to optimise access and uptake of new medicines, aligned with NHS needs, through initiatives that seek to remove administrative delays, balance value and costs, and drive early and widespread uptake of new biosimilars.

An 'innovator passport' is also one of a number of measures being rolled out to help streamline access and adoption of MedTech – such as AI cancer scanners or wearable devices that detect disease early. This could be introduced as early as next year and is designed to enable better sharing of evaluation information and reduce duplication in local purchasing decisions. This and other actions seek to provide a clearer path to uptake for MedTech, supported by the greater flexibility offered by the new Procurement Act 2023.

Focusing on frontier industries

In mapping out how the UK will 'double down' on its already strong position in the global life sciences market, the plan hones in on supporting two so-called frontier industries: pharmaceuticals and medical technologies. As in other IS-8 sector plans, these industries are seen as being at the leading edge of their sector and crucial to breakthroughs/innovation, commercialisation and attracting investment. There is a long-term commitment to these industries, in particular, and a significant focus on investment in R&D.

  • Pharmaceuticals – the industry employed around 150,000 staff and generated £74 billion in turnover in 2021/22, and expenditure on pharmaceutical R&D totalled £9 billion in 2023 (according to statistics from the Office for Life Sciences and Office for National Statistics (ONS)). Recognising some of the challenges this industry faces to fulfil its growth potential, the Life Sciences Sector Plan sets out actions that will streamline regulatory processes boost manufacturing capabilities and improve access to health data for research. This is all underlined by a focus on attracting increased investment, speeding up clinical trials and streamlining the pathway to the commercialisation of innovative medicines.
  • MedTech – encompassing medical devices, diagnostics and digital technologies, MedTech is a broad and growing industry. In 2021/22 it employed around 154,000 staff and generated £24 billion in turnover, with an annual growth of around 6% since 2018/19 (Bioscience and health technology sector statistics, ONS). Much of the focus of the sector's plan for MedTech is around creating a health system that integrates cutting-edge technologies and innovations – supported by the routes to regulatory approval and accelerated access pathways for the most promising new medical technologies to get the products to markets, and to patients, faster.

Concentrating efforts in regions and clusters

It's recognised in the plan that the UK's Life Sciences sector thrives in dynamic city regions and clusters across the country and so networks and connections need to be built between them. Key clusters are identified as the Oxford to Cambridge Growth Corridor, the M4 Corridor, and regions in South Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. These bring together businesses, universities, healthcare systems, and investors, fostering innovation and attracting investment.

The investments and partnerships detailed within the plan are designed to strengthen these networks. In addition, specific place-based investments are detailed and include, for example, the establishment of Regional Health Innovation Zones, investment in health-focused R&D institutions and continued support for Life Sciences-focused Investment Zones.

What are the key takeaways for those working in or with the sector?

For life sciences, health and MedTech organisations the plan provides clarity on the direction of travel for UK growth in the wider sector – and, along with it, significant opportunity for improved access to investment, easier access to health data, and support for skills development and export growth. The initiatives outlined to streamline regulatory and procurement processes, as well as speed up clinical trials, will also be welcome news for the industry.

To create momentum, there are six headline actions that will be of key interest to those working in or with the sector:

  • Realising a Health Data Research Service – an up to £600 million investment from the Government, creating a health data platform to support and quicken the development of innovative medicines and technologies.
  • Reducing the time to set up clinical trials to less than 150 days.
  • Backing manufacturing with up to £520 million to invest in life sciences manufacturing projects.
  • Streamlining regulation and market access to give the industry a clearer route to market, so that patients benefit sooner from cutting-edge innovation and companies benefit from sooner sales.
  • Introducing low-friction procurement to streamline current pathways.
  • Partnering with industry to drive growth and innovation – with a commitment to helping high-potential UK companies raise investment, scale up and remain in the UK, and at least one major industry partnership secured every year.

We continue to follow developments under the plan closely and news of the other IS-8 plans where there may be opportunity for cross-sector collaboration.

To discuss any questions that the UK's Life Science Sector Plan may raise for your business, as it evolves its plans and investments, please contact Sharmela Kalmer, Patrick Duxbury, or Christopher Freeth from our Life Sciences team. You can also read our earlier article on the UK Government's Modern Industrial Strategy for wider context, 'Tech, trade and talent: a summary of the UK's Modern Industrial Strategy 2025'.