Science minister Patrick Vallance has said officials are working to resolve the standoff with big pharmaceutical companies over drug pricing.
While addressing industry leaders and investors at London Life Sciences Week on Monday (17), Vallance said the government was “clear-eyed about the challenges”.
The former GSK executive said the government was acutely aware of the pressures that UK companies face in the current commercial environment.
He said the officials are working "day and night" to make progress on these issues, and the government is focused on resolving them.
The UK spends less than other European countries on new medications as a share of gross domestic product.
The government and the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) have so far failed to agree on the details of the Voluntary Scheme for Pricing, Access and Growth (VPAG) scheme.
The talks got stalled on 22 August after health secretary Wes Streeting walked out of negotiations.
The row between industry and the UK government has been complicated by US president Donald Trump putting pressure on pharmaceutical companies to lower their drug prices in the US and increase them elsewhere.
He also wants them to invest more in the US, or face 100 percent import tariffs.
Vallance said there were reasons to be optimistic and listed recent investments such as Moderna’s £150m vaccine site in Oxfordshire, BioNTech’s £1bn investment over 10 years, and the medical device company Convatec’s £500m research centre in Manchester.
However, there have been some setbacks this year with AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, and Merck announcing that they are either scrapping or pausing their investments in the UK.
