UK pharma industry pledges support for UK staying in EU
The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) and the BioIndustry Association (BIA) have said they want the UK to remain in Europe.
Among the key reasons for staying in the EU is the ease of centralised licensing of drugs and better access to new drugs.
Mike Thompson, chief executive at ABPI, said: “Our members are overwhelmingly supportive of remaining in the EU … We believe that staying in the EU will mean that patients in the UK will be more likely to get faster access to new medicines than if we left.”
He added that the European Medicines Agency, the EU agency responsible for protecting public health, gives pharmaceutical companies a “one stop shop” for “centralised licencing” of new medicines.
If the UK left the EU, Thompson said, this would mean that the licensing of new medicines would have to be handled by a UK agency as well as a European agency, and that applications for a UK licence would come after the European licence due to the smaller patient population in the UK.
Both organisations have published a letter in UK newspaper The Observer outlining the case for staying in the EU. The letter has 93 signatories.
Thompson added that an EU exit also risks the breakdown of international collaboration between scientists and doctors and could “slow down” access to new drugs in the UK.
“We believe that staying in the EU will also encourage global pharmaceutical companies to continue to invest, employ, research, manufacture and export in the UK, rather than elsewhere,” he added.
The UK’s referendum on whether to remain in or leave the EU takes place on June 23.
LSIPR and its sister publication WIPR have been closely following the referendum and what a vote to leave could mean for intellectual property.
You can read some our previous articles here:
The IP fallout if the UK leaves the EU
EU referendum: what a UK exit would mean for trademarks
What would a ‘Brexit’ mean for the UPC and patent litigation?
