According to science.org, a House of Lords committee published an alarming report today titled “Bleeding to death: the science and technology growth emergency” that warns the UK science sector is in crisis. Major pharmaceutical companies including Merck, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly and Sanofi have halted or canceled multimillion-pound investments in recent months, blaming government inaction and drug pricing disputes. The UK hosts only three of the top 100 industrial R&D spenders globally despite having four of the world’s top 10 universities. Scientists face paying over £20,000 upfront for a family of four to relocate to the UK, 17 times more than comparable countries. The report calls for immediate action on visas, funding, and creating a National Council for Science, Technology and Growth to address the emergency.
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The pharmaceutical flight
Here’s the thing: when giants like Merck and AstraZeneca start pulling out, you know there’s a serious problem. John Bell, former president of the Ellison Institute of Technology, told the committee that major pharma companies have essentially said they’re “out and are not coming back.” That’s not just worrying – it’s potentially catastrophic for the UK’s life sciences sector. Basically, if you lose your anchor companies, the entire ecosystem starts to collapse. And we’re not talking small investments here – we’re talking multimillion-pound projects that create jobs, fund research, and drive innovation. The government’s drug pricing disputes seem to have been the final straw, but this has been building for years.
The incubator economy problem
Now here’s where it gets really interesting. The UK is becoming what the report calls an “incubator economy” – they pour money into early-stage research and development, then watch as successful startups immediately head to the US to scale up. So the UK does all the hard work of nurturing these companies through their risky early stages, then loses the economic benefits when they actually become profitable. It’s like training athletes for the Olympics only to have them compete for another country. The report notes that despite world-class universities, the UK has virtually no presence among the top industrial R&D spenders globally. That disconnect between academic excellence and commercial application is costing the country billions.
The absurd immigration barriers
But perhaps the most baffling part of this whole situation is the visa policy. The committee calls it “an absurd act of national self-harm” – and they’re not wrong. Think about it: the UK wants to be a science superpower, but they’re charging scientists £20,000+ just to move there with their families. That’s 17 times what comparable countries charge. The government increased earnings requirements above what early-career researchers can realistically make, and even the Global Talent visa comes with eye-watering NHS fees. So they’re basically telling the world’s best scientific minds: “We want you, but we’re going to make it incredibly expensive and difficult for you to come here.” It’s completely counterproductive.
Can they stop the bleeding?
The committee’s recommendations are actually pretty sensible – create a National Council that can make quick decisions, fix the visa mess, encourage pension funds to invest domestically, and align policies across government departments. But here’s my question: is it too late? When pharma giants say they’re not coming back and startups are already establishing their scaling operations in the US, can you really reverse that momentum? The government has this ambition to host a trillion-dollar tech company by 2035, but that seems pretty optimistic given the current trajectory. They need to act fast, because once you lose your position in these highly competitive sectors, it’s incredibly difficult to get it back. The “bleeding to death” metaphor might sound dramatic, but when you look at the evidence, it’s hard to argue they’re wrong.
