The bioindustry association (BIA) have issued a new report setting out their vision for UK biotech in 2035. The headline approach is that there needs to be a "shift in mindset" to unlock the UK's full potential.
Particular concern is given to the ability to raise capital beyond early stage investment, to support longer-term growth. As the BIA acknowledge in a section looking back at their vision for 2025 (published in 2015), this is one area where the previous vision did not manage to deliver. A core step in achieving this is said to be attracting greater investment from pension funds both in the UK and elsewhere - although a core difficulty, in my view, will be to change the mindset of pension investors to the admittedly more risky biotech market.
Another key area for growth will be to attract the best international talent. In my opinion, while the Trump-driven instabilities in the US may help with this in the immediate term, the UK government's recently-confirmed desire to reduce inward migration and to tighten restrictions on international students (who often stay in the UK to continue research or work in start-ups) is going to be counterproductive here.
The other core thread is to focus on what the UK already does well - critically, we have regulatory and manufacturing expertise; NHS-private partnerships potentially have access to a huge amount of information and population data; and cross-collaboration between industry, academia, and the NHS is common throughout the sector. A further area in which the UK already punches above its weight is in the world of AI, which is bringing new and exciting ways to the world of drug discovery.
While I can't help being slightly skeptical that some of the aims seem to clash with current political priorities, I do indeed hope that the vision proves to be a driver of the UK's excellent and innovative biotech scene for the next decade and beyond.
In 2035, we envision a UK biotech sector with a stronger long-term capital base supporting both early—and later-stage firms. It will include more scaled-up companies, more hospitable public markets, a deeper talent pool, and continued global recognition for leadership across research, health/genomics data, clinical infrastructure, and specialist manufacturing. UK biotech will have shored up its status as a top three cluster internationally.
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