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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Julia Kollewe

Big pharma will stop investing in UK, top scientist warns after Merck’s £1bn exit

A female scientist in a lab coat looks at a beaker
Merck pulled out of its planned £1bn research in London, citing the UK’s lack of progress in life science investment. Photograph: Dpa Picture Alliance/Alamy

Sir John Bell, a prominent scientist who brought business and government together during the Covid-19 vaccine rollout, has warned that other big pharmaceutical companies will stop investing in the UK, after the US drugmaker MSD’s decision to scrap its planned £1bn London research centre.

Bell, a former regius professor of medicine at the University of Oxford, told Today on BBC Radio 4 that he had spoken to several chief executives of large companies in the past six months and that they were “all in the same space. And that is: they’re not going to do any more investing in the UK.”

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