The UK Government Has Plans: What Does This Mean For The Life Sciences Sector?

The UK Government has recently published plans for the Life Sciences Sector and the NHS in England. In this blog post, we summarise these plans and some of the initial feedback that has been published by ABPI. It is not surprising that there is a large amount of overlap between the two plans, albeit that the NHS 10 Year Plan is more rooted in the public sector. Both plans send a clear message: the Government recognises the vital role that life sciences companies must play in order to improve the UK's standing as a centre for life sciences. The impact these plans will have on the Life Sciences industry, and whether they are enough to realise the Government's ambitions, remains to be determined.

Life Sciences Sector Plan

On 16 July 2025, the UK government published its Life Sciences Sector Plan (Plan), setting out various actions and funding aimed at positioning the UK as the leading life sciences economy in Europe by 2030. The announcement forms part of the UK government's Modern Industrial Strategy, which intends to deliver long-term economic growth in the UK.

Key Features

The Plan concentrates on the following three strategic pillars:

1. Enabling "world-class" research and development
2. Making the UK an attractive place for life sciences business
3. Driving health innovation and NHS reform

The government will focus its initial efforts on six headline actions, collectively supported by £2 billion of government funding, alongside contributions from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR):

1. Realising a Health Data Research Service: The government and the Wellcome Trust will invest up to £600 million to create a secure and AI-ready health data platform.
2. Reducing clinical trial setup times to under 150 days: By updating NIHR governance and placing a dual health and growth mandate on the NIHR, the government aims to cut delays that deter investors. It also aims to double commercial interventional trial participants by 2026, and again by 2029.
3. Backing manufacturing with up to £520 million: The Life Sciences Innovative Manufacturing Fund (LSIMF) intends to attract globally mobile manufacturing investments to the UK. The government will also develop a new, bespoke approach to supporting investments over £250 million.
4. Streamlining regulation and market access: The government will support the MHRA to become a faster, more "agile" regulator and provide industry with a clearer route to market through joint advice and parallel approvals with NICE. A route for international reliance for medicines and medical devices will also be introduced, enabling patients to benefit sooner from innovation.
5. Introducing low-friction procurement: The procurement process will be streamlined to make it clearer and less bureaucratic. This includes the introduction of the NHS "Innovator Passport", enabling innovative MedTech products to reach patients more quickly.
6. Partnering with industry to drive growth and innovation: The government will continue to partner with industry throughout the delivery of these actions and work directly with individual companies. It intends to secure at least one major strategic partnership annually with leading life sciences companies. Additionally, a dedicated support service will be established to help 10–20 high-potential UK companies scale, attract investment, and remain headquartered in the UK.

The Plan also designates single accountable owners for each action, a novel mechanism in government policy, intended to ensure delivery and measurable outcomes.

ABPI's Response: the Plan "Falls Short"

The ABPI has responded to the Plan, warning that the "core ambition of the government's new life sciences strategy will not be realised unless it makes a real commitment to invest more in new medicines."

The ABPI's position is the Plan includes many important and necessary commitments to support the use of data for research and encourage investment in manufacturing, but these actions do not go far enough to reverse the "decline" of the UK's standing as a centre for life sciences. In particular, the ABPI notes that the increased payment rates under the Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing, Access and Growth (VPAG) and the Statutory Scheme are undermining government efforts to make Life Sciences a key pillar of its industrial strategy.

10 Year Health Plan for England

On 3 July 2025 the Government published a policy paper "10 Year Health Plan for England: fit for the future" (10 Year Plan), which sets out the Government's ten year health plan for the NHS in England. It comes following a clear and resounding call for change, which emerged from the "Change NHS" initiative, launched in October 2024, which received over a quarter of a million contributions from members of the public, healthcare staff and industry.

The 10 Year Plan recognises that the NHS is at "an existential brink" and reform is urgently required. The plan calls for "transformational change" in order to guarantee the sustainability of the NHS.

In particular, it calls for three "radical shifts" that will make up the core components of the Government's new care model:

1. Hospital to community – The 10 Year Plan describes the NHS's current hospital centric approach as "detached" and "fragmented". Under the "hospital to community" shift, care will be brought into local communities. The shift will rely on a combination of online consultations, home visits and Neighbourhood Health Centres. The idea being that, where possible, patients will be treated in their own communities and will only be referred to hospitals if their condition requires it. Under this model, fewer patients would be treated in hospital, reducing the strain on hospitals and enabling hospitals to focus on providing world class specialist care to those who need it.
2. Analogue to digital – Under the "analogue to digital" shift, the 10 Year Plan aims to create "the most digitally accessible health system in the world". The plan envisions that, through the NHS App, all patients will have access to a "doctor in their pocket". The NHS App will become the "front door" to the NHS; patients will have a single secure account to manage all of their health needs (e.g. access to GP and specialist consultations, vaccinations, medications etc). The plan also envisions a "HealthStore", where patients will be able to access certain approved digital tools to manage their conditions. Healthcare professionals would also be able to monitor patients and intervene when they identity deterioration in their condition.
3. Sickness to prevention – The "sickness to prevention" shift aims to tackle the issue of obesity, as well as other areas where early prevention or detection can play a key role such as: smoking, vaping, alcoholism, mental health and cancer. It aims to address these areas through a number of initiatives, with a large degree of focus on the younger generation.

Supporting Change

In order to support the magnitude of change required to make these shifts, the Government recognises it will need to take certain steps, including:

• Adopting a new operating model, which will empower local healthcare providers and reinvent the foundation trust model.
• Enhancing transparency through increased reporting as well as reformed league tables and complaints procedures.
• Reforming the workforce though strategic hiring, up to date training (including harnessing support from AI) and career development opportunities to incentivise employees.
• Reforming funding flow in order to incentivise innovation and productivity.
• Supporting innovation through five key transformative technologies including data, AI, genomics, wearables and robotics.

In addition, there is recognition that to truly capitalise on the most innovative treatments and technologies it will be necessary to:

• Expand NICE's technology appraisal process to cover devices, diagnostics and digital products. NICE will also be given a new role to identify which outdated technologies and therapies can be removed from the NHS to free up resources for investment in more effective ones.
• Establish new global institutes to help the UK elevate its position as a world leader in science and innovation.
• Speed up clinical trial recruitment. The aim is that by March 2026, clinical trials setup time will fall to 150 days.
• Introduce multi-year budgets and require NHS organisations to reserve at least 3% of annual spend for one-time investments in service transformation, to help translate innovations into practice more rapidly.
• Expand the role that life sciences and technology companies can play in service delivery. This will be aided by "streamlining" the process for procurement of technology, and a move towards a single national formulary for medicines within the next 2 years.

ABPI's Response: the 10 Year Plan "gets it right" on certain aspects

The ABPI has responded to the 10 Year Plan, recognising that it "gets it right on genomics and advanced therapies, as well as accelerated clinical trials and supporting participation in research". However, ABPI also noted that despite acknowledging the significant beneficial impact medicines have on health and the economy, the Government makes no commitment to increase its investment in medicines. ABPI noted that the UK now spends less on medicines than most of its European peers and has seen a ten percent decline in the availability of new medicines compared to two percent in Europe. In light of this, ABPI has called on the Government to "increase the proportion of NHS spend on medicines and vaccines to internationally comparable levels".

ABPI has also expressed particular "concern" in relation to the proposal to set up a single national formulary. While acknowledging that any measure which seeks to reduce bureaucracy and speed up equitable adoption of medicines is "welcome"; there is concern that a single formulary could push prescribers into adhering to set treatment rankings. ABPI also expressed reservations about tasking NICE with identifying innovations that can be retired, as this could risk restricting patient and clinician choice.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.