Life Sciences Businesses

Debate between Lord Kamall and Lord Johnson of Lainston

Monday 26th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her prompting. The Government have put more money into the MHRA, specifically for clinical trials, to assist all of our agencies to license more effectively and faster. As Minister for better regulation, it is part of my specific project to drive innovation. Clearly, this is not without risk, but, if we are to own the IP and lead the world, it is essential that we must go faster. That applies not just to the regulators but to government departments. We are working hard on this, but I appreciate the challenge.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My Lords, I refer to my interests, as set out in the register. When I was in the Department of Health, I had a meeting with a number of start-ups from the life sciences sector. They told me what wonderful products and services they had, but that they could not convince investors to invest in them. We looked at whether we could bring investors together with start-ups and scale-ups, so that they better understood each other—the companies could understand what the investors were asking for in returns and investors could understand the potential of these businesses. What progress has been made in bridging the gap between investors seeking to understand investing in the life sciences industries and those start-ups seeking to attract investment?

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for that point. This is very much the work of the Office for Life Sciences, the Department for Business and Trade, and the Office for Investment. We do a huge amount of work liaising with companies and investors. One of our missions is to get more life sciences funds established in the UK, so that we can, I hope, benefit from the home buyer. I was particularly pleased a few months ago to celebrate the opening of the Flagship Pioneering office in London, which is precisely that sort of life sciences fund. It was part of the incredible investment in companies such as Moderna. We want them here and they want to come to the UK. If we can encourage them to do this, it will have a huge advantage in bridging the gaps my noble friend mentioned.