Secretary of State for Science, Innovation, and Technology, Liz Kendall, lately delivered a speech at Bio Industry Association on Thursday 29 January 2026.
Good night! It’s completely great to be right here to assist have a good time this unimaginable sector.
My temporary message tonight may be very easy…
…there isn’t a path to stronger progress on this nation…
…no reply to how we pay our method, and compete with the remainder of the world…
…nor any path to a greater NHS, and a greater future for sufferers, with out the British life sciences and biotech sector, main from the entrance and centre.
You already make use of greater than 350,000 folks.
And contribute over £145 billion to our economic system.
In simply the previous couple of years, we’ve had so many phenomenal breakthroughs. Like Autolus and their new remedy for a uncommon sort of leukaemia.
Vertex creating a gene-editing remedy for blood problems.
And Bristol Myers Squibb’s immunotherapy jab which means most cancers sufferers can now be handled in 5 minutes – as an alternative of sitting for an hour with an IV drip.
You are altering lives, altering our nation too.
But I do know that you simply, and we, need to go even additional collectively.
Our purpose is to make the UK the highest life sciences economic system in Europe by 2030.
And the third, globally, by 2035.
That ambition drives not solely me because the Science and Tech Secretary, however the Chancellor, and our Prime Minister.
And now we have highly effective champions in authorities, together with the unbelievable Patrick Vallance, and Steve Bates at our expanded Office for Life Sciences.
In the six months since we launched our Life Sciences Sector Plan now we have made actual progress.
We’re making the NHS a greater buyer for innovation.
Speeding up medical trials, which we will and may count on to see way more progress on.
A brand new Health Data Research Service (HDRS): a single, safe entry level to nationwide scale well being knowledge.
A landmark pharma take care of the US.
And we’re placing the largest ever funding into R&D funding of any authorities ever, together with greater than £38 billion for UKRI.
And I’m actually delighted to verify that alongside further funding for AI analysis and for engineering biology, the devoted price range for life sciences will assure £1.5 billion for R&D on this sector, over the subsequent 4 years.
And additionally I’m delighted to announce that the MRC Lab for Molecular Biology, in Cambridge…
…Britain’s very personal “Nobel Prize factory”…
…will obtain 10-years of assured funding.
Starting with round £50 million a yr, over the subsequent 4 years, on this Spending Review.
But you realize higher than anybody that public cash is a component solely of the equation.
We have gotten to unlock non-public funding too.
This authorities needs to get Britain’s wealth doing extra to again Britain’s innovators.
That’s why the Chancellor introduced the Mansion House Accord, and why as Work and Pensions Secretary I launched the Pension Schemes Bill, to drive consolidation within the pensions market, to spice up funding in UK PLC.
And it’s why in June, the British Business Bank (BBB) launched its £4 billion Industrial Strategy Growth Capital initiative, to assist promising companies to scale up, and maintain them within the UK for longer.
So let me simply end by saying this.
You are considered one of Britain’s biggest nationwide belongings.
When we work in partnership, the federal government and companies collectively…
…sufferers get sooner entry to raised medication…
…corporations scale-up and keep within the UK…
…jobs are created, placing more cash into folks’s pockets, serving to increase our economic system.
That is the promise discovered on this room.
That is why you might be so vital, so allow us to crack on with the job.
Thank you.