In his attempts to reduce drug prices in the U.S., President Donald Trump’s message to the rest of the world has been clear: Other nations need to pay more for U.S. innovation.
That sentiment has put England in the crosshairs of the pharmaceutical industry, with drugmakers fleeing the country and some taking parting shots at the government on the way out. And now, one of the most powerful voices in biopharma has joined the chorus.
In an interview with Financial Times, Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks called the U.K. “probably the worst country in Europe” for drug pricing and added that England is “not an attractive environment for investment.”
Earlier this month, Lilly said it was reconsidering its plan for a 279 million pound sterling ($378 million) biotech incubator project, which was activated last year in an agreement with the U.K. government.
That decision came after Lilly halted shipments of weight loss juggernaut Mounjaro to the U.K. at the end of August, in advance of a plan to increase its list price by as much 170%.
“What we had seen is people taking trains from Paris to buy U.K. Mounjaro,” Ricks told the FT. “That doesn’t make a ton of sense for us.”
In the interview with the FT, Ricks pointed out that the U.K. pays less for drugs than other developed countries. He also suggested that the often hard line drawn by England’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence in pricing assessments could compel companies to stop selling their drugs there.
“Unless that changes, I don’t think they will see many new medicines and I don’t think they will see much investment,” Ricks said. “That’s the U.K.’s choice, but we react to those choices.”
Earlier this week, Bristol Myers Squibb sent a similar message when it said that it plans to charge the same for its new schizophrenia drug Cobenfy in the U.K. that it does in the U.S. If an agreement can’t be made with the U.K. on its price “we are prepared to make the difficult decision to walk away,” BMS Chief Commercial Officer Adam Lenkowsky added in an emailed statement.
Another company turning away from the U.K. is Merck. Two weeks ago, the New Jersey drugmaker revealed that it was bailing on a 1 billion pound ($1.3 billion) R&D center and future headquarters in London, along with discontinuing all of its research operations in Britain, citing an unwelcoming business environment for drugmakers.
That announcement came days after AstraZeneca said it had paused a 200 million pound ($271 million) investment in Cambridge. Earlier this year, the company also scrapped a 450 million pound ($610 million) outlay planned for a vaccine R&D and manufacturing site in Liverpool.
The departures have triggered a reassessment of healthcare policies in Britain. Last week, the U.K.'s science minister and former GSK R&D lead Patrick Vallance called it a “pivotal moment” for the country in its dealings with the industry. He said that the U.K. needed to reverse a decade-long trend of declining government investment in medicines.
His comments came after a report from the Cambridge Economic Policy Associates indicated that the U.K. is losing business opportunities in the life sciences sector because the government undervalues the economic and social benefits of investing in the manufacturing of innovative medicines.