You can’t escape Brexit. It’s the issue that’s dominated British politics and the work of the UK Government for the past two and a half years. It’s not only dominating the news at home but abroad too, whether in the US, China or even on mainland Europe I inevitably get asked the same question, ‘what is going on with Brexit?’

We’ve been making the case clearly to the Government and other stakeholders, that a ‘no deal’ Brexit would mean the biggest dis-integration of the complex regulated medicines market across Europe in terms of regulation, cross-border movement of goods, comparative pricing and intellectual property.

All of us involved in the life sciences sector know that Brexit poses significant risks. Every month, 45 million packs of medicines move from the UK to the EU and 37 million go the other way. The life sciences sector knows that it is patients who are at the end of their supply chains. The work our industry has done over the past two years to prepare for Brexit has been tremendous.

We are a thriving sector - the UK is the leading life sciences cluster in Europe and continues to challenge clusters in California and Massachusetts. As our recent Finance Report Confident Capital: backing UK biotech shows, this is a sector which continues to attract large global investment. We can’t afford to jeopardise an industry that creates jobs, pioneering R&D and ultimately, helps patients.

The BIA will continue to give voice to our sector at all levels of government and we hope that the resources on our microsite will be useful to you.

Steve Bates OBE 

CEO of the BIA