AstraZeneca

Lord Northbrook Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for her question. The UK is fortunate to have two very large pharmaceutical companies in this land, and we have many biotechs starting up as a result, because many of the people in those biotechs were trained in the big companies. As my noble friend quite rightly points out, the relationship with the NHS is important. All of these things create an ecosystem for life sciences investment which we are very keen to continue. The history of state-run manufacturing facilities is not one that generally leads to advanced manufacturing and efficiency.

[Lord Northbrook (Con)]

My Lords, can the Minister give us more detail as to why AstraZeneca pulled out? He said there were a number of reasons, so I wonder if he could go into more detail.

[Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)]

Yes, I am happy to do so. The first was the restructuring of the deal because of the AstraZeneca decision to put less into R&D, which meant that there was a proportionate decrease in the state funding, which I think most people would think would be an appropriate position in a deal. Secondly, I think that it has expressed concerns about the voluntary scheme for branded medicines pricing and access programme. It was also concerned about NICE’s decision to refuse approval for its recent drug Enhertu. But I think noble Lords would agree that it is not appropriate for the Government to link decisions on individual drugs to investment in other parts of the system.