What Is The Industrial Strategy?
“The Industrial Strategy sets out the government’s plan to create an economy that boosts productivity and earning power throughout the UK”. It is built on 5 foundations and they are:- Ideas
- People
- Infrastructure
- Business environment
- Places
Ideas
- Raising total research and development investment to 2.4% of GDP by 2027. (To put this in context, the UK’s GDP in 2016 was $2.619 trillion).
- Increasing the R&D tax credit to 12%. (To put this in context, an overview of 2015 R&D tax credits from developed nations is below. Source: OECD)
People
- The UK aims to establish a technical education system that rivals the best in the world.
- It aims to invest an additional £406 million in teaching STEM subjects.
- It aims to launch a national re-skilling service to enable individuals to retrain and secure roles in sectors such as life sciences.
Infrastructure
- There will be £31 billion made available to fund new infrastructure. Included in that will be a half a billion pounds of a national electric car infrastructure and grant scheme for electric car drivers and a £1.4 billion for digital infrastructure improvement.
Business Environment
- The Life Science Sector Deal is the first of a number of sector specific deals that will seek to regenerate industries where UK productivity is lagging behind other countries and to give an additional boost to sectors, such as life science, where the UK is already an established leader.
- The UK Government will create a £2.5 billion investment fund for high potential start up businesses.
Places
- Local industry strategies will be created to assist regions where unemployment is higher than average and where traditional industries are no longer a significant part of the local economy.
- There will be a new fund for the development of city regions.
What Is The Life Science Strategy?
The Life Sciences Sector Deal Industrial Strategy was led by Professor Sir John Bell and it aims to identify areas where the UK’s life science sector can increase productivity, improve the use of data, reinforce a strong science base that is home to companies such as GSK and Astra Zeneca, deepen indigenous skills and benefit patients. The challenge for the life sciences sector is how it takes the United Kingdom forward while being unaware of where it will stand in a geopolitical context and what its future relationship with its largest trading partner will look like. Events of recent weeks have done little to cheer those skeptical about the viability of the life science sector strategy plan. However, it is this strategy that has, perhaps, given the UK Prime Minister and her embattled government most to cheer about in recent times. Approximately 25 companies have committed to new investments in the UK in the coming years. The companies, like the investments, range in size. They demonstrate, to many, that the UK’s life sciences sector will still be a global leader after the UK leaves the European Union.- GSK has committed to investing £40 million into new initiatives that will harness advances in genetic research in the development of novel medicines.
- Astra Zeneca is committing £500 million in developing its new strategic R&D centre and global headquarters in Cambridge.
- MSD intends to create 950 jobs at a new research facility and headquarters.
- Janssen, a Johnson & Johnson company, intends to work on novel clinical trial methodologies in collaboration with the University of Oxford.
- Roche Diagnostics will work with the NHS to support the mainstream implementation of Digital Pathology Services in England.