Merck & Co (MSD) has ditched plans for its £1bn R&D centre in London, UK, whereas ceasing drug discovery and analysis efforts throughout the nation in a double blow to the nationwide life sciences sector.
This information comes fewer than two years after the US-based pharma began building on the R&D hub in King’s Cross, which was set to develop into the corporate’s UK headquarters.
On prime of its pullback from new investments within the UK, MSD will even stop its UK-based R&D operations by the top of this yr, that means 125 scientists working on the London Bioscience Innovation Centre (LBIC) and the Francis Crick Institute will lose their jobs.
A spokesperson from MSD advised Pharmaceutical Expertise that these choices have been made consistent with the corporate’s “multi-year optimisation” plan, which can see the corporate lower its international operational prices by $3bn by 2027. This plan was put in place after the corporate’s efficiency fell wanting expectations in H1 2025.
The pharma additionally talked about that UK operations turned a casualty of cuts by means of the shortage of “significant progress in the direction of addressing the dearth of funding within the life science trade”.
Nevertheless, lacklustre funding was not MSD’s solely supply of discontent, because the pharma additionally took challenge with the UK Authorities’s “total undervaluation of modern medicines and vaccines” – a sentiment that appears to be shared by key trade rival, AstraZeneca.
Final yr, the UK-based large pharma, which is the most important British firm by market cap, additionally deserted its plans to construct a $450m vaccine manufacturing facility in Liverpool, after authorities pledges of funding for the positioning fell wanting expectations.
Since then, relationships haven’t appeared to have improved, as AstraZeneca’s CEO Pascal Soriot is mulling over a possible transfer for the corporate’s public itemizing to the US inventory market.
The broader pharma trade can also be despondent in regards to the UK life sciences market. A report from the Affiliation of the British Pharmaceutical Business (ABPI) has revealed that overseas direct funding fell by 58% between 2021 and 2023.
This report dropped amid an ongoing stalemate between Massive Pharma and UK Well being Secretary Wes Streeting round NHS drug pricing, with him stating that he wouldn’t enable sufferers to be “ripped off” when pharma firms rejected his pricing deal. The ABPI warned that – if a deal just isn’t reached – it’ll probably hurt sufferers, as drug makers might select to not launch their merchandise within the UK.
“MSD calls off £1bn UK enlargement amid government-big pharma tensions” was initially created and printed by Pharmaceutical Expertise, a GlobalData owned model.
