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Onward activity

Over the weekend, Ministers announced that the Government would end financing for overseas fossil fuel projects, a key recommendation in Onward’s Costing the Earth.

This week, we will be launching our new cross-party research programme on the practical and political challenges to delivering net zero. The programme will run for just under a year, until COP26 in Glasgow next November.

TEAM NEWS

We are delighted to announce that Will Holloway, former Special Adviser in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Department for International Development, will shortly be joining as Deputy Director of Onward.

In addition, Ted Christie-Miller and James Blagden have been promoted to Senior Researchers, leading Onward’s Getting to Zero and Levelling Up programmes respectively.

Last chance to apply. We are looking to hire an experienced researcher to work on our upcoming Getting to zero research programme. The application deadline is this Thursday. More details can be found here.

The pharmaceutical industry has had a rocky relationship with the public.

In 2013, fewer than one in five of people thought pharma was trustworthy or upheld high moral and ethical standards. During the 2016 Labour leadership election, Owen Smith’s work at Pfizer earlier in his career led to boos from the crowd. In last year's election, Jeremy Corbyn attacked drug makers as "putting private profit before public health" and proposed a new state-owned drug company.

What a difference a year makes. Today, the life sciences sector is not only delivering us a salvation from the pandemic, but offering hope for the recovery. In addition to the rollout of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, AstraZeneca announced that the Oxford vaccine would be available at cost price in perpetuity in developing countries.

The sector in the UK is a top three global hub for life sciences, the number one recipient for foreign direct life sciences investment in Europe and the industry employs over 250,000 people across the UK - up 20,000 since 2010. This success is due in part to healthy collaborations between industry, academia and government - a relationship embodied by the collaboration between BioNTech, who came up with the vaccine concept, Pfizer, who brought manufacturing scale to the process, and the NHS, which is now rolling it out to millions of people.

A sustained focus on the life sciences sector, beyond the response to the current coronavirus pandemic, could deliver for ‘Red Wall’ constituencies, as well as playing a part in the post-Covid-19 recovery and building resilience in the event of future epidemic preparedness.

The Northern regions of England are home to a fifth of the workforce in the life sciences industry, and leading companies have significant footprints there: GSK is one of the largest private sector employers in the North East of England, with a site in County Durham, for example. Moreover the pharmaceutical industry accounts for almost a fifth of UK R&D, meaning further investment will have significant spillover effects.

There are some encouraging signs the Government is already thinking in this space. Last month, the Prime Minister launched the Medicines and Diagnostic Manufacturing Transformation Fund - a fund worth £20 million initially to improve domestic medicine supply chains. More details will be announced in the months ahead, but eligible companies will be able bid into the fund to help with capital costs Notably, the Prime Minister launched the fund in North Wales.

California’s Silicon Valley became a synonym for models to attract and grow high tech and R&D businesses, but with countries around the world looking to prepare in the event of future epidemics India’s Serum Institute might be the better case study to look at. The Government's renewed industrial strategy next year should try to build clusters of regional growth in life sciences as a matter of urgency.

Demand for vaccines and pharmaceutical innovation will not dissipate after next year and technologically the development of mRNA vaccines to fight coronavirus opens up a host of new possibilities for drug discovery. We should back life sciences as one of the UK's greatest exports.

Will Holloway will shortly take up his position as Deputy Director of Onward.

Policy news

The Energy White Paper was launched yesterday. It sets out plans to support up to 220,000 jobs over the decade, test automatically switching for energy consumers to end the loyalty penalty, and establish a UK Emissions Trading Scheme post-Brexit. Link.
The UK’s first battery ‘gigafactory’ will be built in Blyth, in the North East, in a major boost for the region. The £2.6 billion factory, built on the site of a former coal power station, will create up to 3,000 jobs. Link.
The Government has announced a £20m fund to support the manufacture of medicines and diagnostic technology, to prepare the UK for future pandemics. Link.

Quick links

Are the Paris goals still in reach? Leslie Hook considers the actions needed to reach climate targets. Link (£).
Roaring Twenties. Onward advisory board member, Neil O’Brien, sets out four possible ways economic growth could be boosted. Link.
Mind the gap. Mental health has suffered most from COVID-19 in the UK than in 16 other countries, YouGov finds. Link.
Dry tinder. Households built up an average £7,100 in savings over the course of the pandemic. Link.

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