With drugmakers freezing investment in the U.K., the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) has set out its vision for how Scotland can buck the trend and become a leader in R&D and cutting-edge medicines.
Scotland is part of the U.K. but has devolved powers that provide opportunities to diverge from England, Northern Ireland and Wales. The pharma trade group wants the next Scottish Parliament, which is set to be elected in May 2026, to use those powers to attract pharma investment at a time when companies are rethinking plans to expand in England.
The pharma trade group wants the next Parliament to make Scotland a leader in research and innovation by providing support for clinical trials. The ABPI is calling on politicians to reinvest the money the healthcare service makes from commercial studies to create “a long-term financially sustainable and world-class trials environment in Scotland.”
Regulatory changes are part of the plan. The ABPI wants Parliament to adopt “Once for Scotland” approvals and offer the “fastest setup and most reliable patient recruitment in the U.K.” With England aiming to reduce clinical trial setup times to 150 days, the trade group is encouraging Scotland to match or beat the offer available south of the border.
The ABPI addresses drug pricing and access—the nub of its disagreement with the U.K. government—in a separate section of the report. But, as the freeze of investment in U.K. R&D facilities because of concerns about the commercial environment has shown, there are links between where companies make money and where they develop medicines.
The ABPI report makes one of the links explicit. To develop a world-class research environment, the ABPI said Scotland’s leaders need to “recognize that clinical trials for new medicines are placed where current best 'standard-of-care' medicines are routinely available to patients.” The ABPI said 28% of medicines available to Europeans are fully available in line with their license in Scotland, compared to 90% in Germany.
Healthcare is also devolved in Scotland, giving the Parliament the power to diverge from practices in England. The ABPI is calling for the Scottish government to use the powers to change how the value of medicines is assessed, provide financial incentives for the deployment of new innovations and pilot novel approaches such as indication-based pricing.