Jim Armitage: Big Pharma needs a dose of reassurance on funding
Why does big business seem to think nothing endears it more to the British public than threatening to naff off abroad if it doesn’t get taxpayer subsidies?
Today was Big Pharma’s turn, as the industry’s lobbyists toured the media studios, issuing veiled warnings it’ll disappear abroad if we don’t pitch in with more public funding for the university research it profits from.
Rather than adopt this negative, gun-to-the-head approach, wealthy businesses should talk up the positives, like fulfilling, well-paid careers and good old British pride in our world-leading expertise.
The threatening tone is all the more irritating because it clouds the strong point drugs firms have to make.
It is this: the former business secretary Vince Cable made pharma a key part of the department of business’s industrial strategy, ringfencing the science budget and strengthening the industry’s backbone of publicly-funded university innovation.
But since the election, the department’s stance under Sajid Javid remains a mystery.
As a result, with a spending review looming, rumours fly about daft plans to cut research councils’ budgets and “streamline” the organisations.
Javid should come out of the shadows and reassure universities and pharma firms they have nothing to fear.
Their highly paid lobbyists may be infuriating, but there’s a great British industry behind them that needs heeding.
