UK on track to reverse years of pharma decline, ABPI report finds

The UK could be set to enter a pharma renaissance after a tricky few years punctuated with withdrawn investments, a stagnant funding landscape and challenges around R&D-to-commercial translation, a new analysis has revealed.

According to findings from the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry’s (ABPI) 2026 Competitiveness Report, the UK has made some headway in reversing years of industry decline as both core competitive strengths and investments across the region experience an uptick.

As evidence of this, the ABPI points to the £2bn ($2.7bn) total investments made into the UK since September 2025, which cover a broad range of areas such as artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled drug discovery and large-scale medicines manufacturing. According to the trade association, these investments were primarily spurred by blooming partnerships between the industry and government, as well as an increase in the UK’s investment in innovative medicines and the renewed cost-benefit ratio employed by Britain’s health watchdog the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).

By analysing more than 40 international metrics of the UK’s competitiveness against 12 leading markets, the ABPI also found that Britain ranks in the top three for seven of the nine metrics focused on a nation’s established science base – eclipsing all others accounted into the analysis. The UK’s R&D is landscape is further bolstered by the government’s health R&D budget and British industry’s ability to raise capital, which are both the highest in Europe.

Risks to the UK’s competitiveness remain

However, the ABPI warns that the UK’s competitive R&D edge could be at risk of being dulled by powerhouse innovators like China, who are continuing to make a significant mark on the sector through their rapid regulatory review times and efficient trial enrolment processes.

A recent report from the BioIndustry Association (BIA) also revealed that UK biotechs are struggling to grow as fast as their international rivals due to challenges around access to financing, despite their current top-ranking spot in Europe. Previously, the BIA’s director of policy and external affairs, Martin Turner, told Pharmaceutical Technology that placing a stronger emphasis on enacting pension fund policies could help to reverse this trend.

The UK’s future opportunities

According to the ABPI’s chief executive, Richard Torbett, while the early signs of success paint a positive picture for the UK pharma sector’s future, he notes that this continued trajectory is not yet set in stone.

“Investors make decisions that play out over decades, and they are watching closely to see whether the UK delivers on the commitments it has made,” Torbett asserts.

“The task now is to provide and proceed along a clear, reliable roadmap to delivery so companies can invest with confidence,” he says, adding that if the UK can get this right, it could unlock tens of thousands of jobs and potentially faster access to new medicines for patients through the National Health Service (NHS).

To achieve this, the ABPI proposes closer alignment between UK drug regulators and NICE, allowing more patients to access innovative drugs across the country, as well as faster approval times to get these therapies to patients quicker. The industry body also highlights the potential of further improvements to study set-up times in the UK, the harmonisation of British health data and enhanced tax and investment incentives.

“UK on track to reverse years of pharma decline, ABPI report finds” was originally created and published by Pharmaceutical Technology, a GlobalData owned brand.