Speeches by Freeman.

“I suppose my key point—you and I both come from industry—is from my experience having been there, DH undervalues time; industry would take price reductions in return for speed of validation, data and, “This drug works with these patients, not with those.” That was the promise of our 2010 coalition strategy, but we neve…”

“I have one last question about ministerial responsibilities. We used to have one Minister for life science who did the DH, Business and Office for Investment bits. Dr Ahmed, do you have responsibility in DH for all the life sciences? Are you the life science Minister?”

“We called this emergency meeting because this is pretty serious. It is not just this announcement; we have also heard AstraZeneca is cancelling a £450 million vaccine project and pausing a £200 million expansion, Eli Lilly is pausing its Gateway, and Sanofi is freezing its investment. This is pretty serious. We have th…”

“In terms of innovation uptake?”

“For the drugs budget?”

“Do you have responsibility for the NIHR?”

“I am taking a really clear message from this, which is that the real problem here is an NHS adoption, uptake and pricing issue in our life sciences ecosystem. It is not the MRC, the Department for Business and Trade or OLS. The problem is the NHS and DHSC policy on purchasing, innovation and drugs. That is what I think…”

“What was it that you wanted in the Life Sciences Sector Plan that you do not have?”

“I understand, but this is bad news. What is it missing?”

“Thank you very much.”

“We have a DHSC Minister about to join us.”

“Having been in the industry 30 years, we would agree on a lot of things, not least that this sector has come and gone and had its highs and lows. Having been in your position—we were here back in 2010: pharma was closing and biotech was on its knees—this happens. Not every Government get it absolutely right, but in tha…”

“The threat, as I see it, is also acquisitions. We cheer ourselves on for having sold a company. Other countries cannot believe we have sold it so cheaply. There are a lot of dark China investment funds that are in disguise. There is a whole landscape, not just cyber-security. Can we turn to space, or do you want to fin…”

“I am intrigued as to whether there is—I do not think there is yet—an index of research security. My fear is that the UK is very open, hugely collaborative, does not police and is haemorrhaging value. As a Minister responsible for making sure that we are getting public value and as a Committee charged with making sure t…”

“James, how would you rate us internationally on this? Who is doing it really well?”

“As you probably both know, I should declare I am very concerned about this. We are witnessing an industrial scale haemorrhaging of value from the UK science and tech landscape, and, as a Minister, I raised the issue of broader research security at three G7s and two G20s. I want to ask about two Ps: principles and polic…”

“Ottoline and Siobhan, do you have a high-risk programme in UKRI? Do you score projects? Do you have an ambition to take more risk?”

“I want to ask about commercial risk. This is a question for Sarah and Alex, given your distinguished backgrounds in the private sector as well as across Government, and then I will come to Dame Ottoline and Siobhan from inside UKRI. We are trying to win in a global race against cut-throat competition that is getting fi…”

“It is quite important that we know that number, isn’t it?”

“Has that gone up or down significantly during your time in recent years?”