Closing summary
Grocery price inflation in the UK picked up in October, while supermarket sales hit their highest level so far this year, as shoppers started their Christmas shopping early, buying mince pies and Christmas cake.
Grocery prices rose by 2.3% year-on-year, up from 2% in September “but still within typical levels,” according to retail analysts Kantar. The rate has been below 3% every month since the early summer.
The UK’s jobs market has shown further signs of cooling after a rise in unemployment in September while pay growth slowed, as business leaders warned the budget could hit hiring demand and lead to higher prices.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show the rate of unemployment rose to 4.3% in the three months to September, up from 4% the previous quarter, amid broader signs of a slowdown in the jobs market.
While the ONS warned its jobs market figures should be treated with caution amid data collection issues, separate figures showed the number of employees on company payrolls fell by 9,000 over the quarter and vacancies fell for a 28th consecutive month to the lowest level since May 2021.
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Thank you for reading. We’ll be back tomorrow. Bye! – JK
Sandoz opens £10m device development lab in Cambridge
In a boost to UK life sciences, the Swiss drugmaker Sandoz has just opened a £10m device development lab in Cambridge to work on pen injectors, autoinjectors, on-body devices, inhalers, nasal and ophthalmic sprays.
The company, which specialises in generic drugs (cheap copies of drugs that have come off patent) and is the largest generic drugmaker in the world, employs 45 scientists at the site and is in the process of hiring 15 more by early next year, with more recruitment planned later in 2025.
Its UK headquarters is in Camberley in Surrey, where around 170 people. The firm is also opening a £100m factory in Slovenia and is pursuing investments in Austria.
Richard Saynor, the Sandoz chief executive, and Baroness Gillian Merron, health minister responsible for life sciences and innovation, have opened the device development centre in Cambridge.
Merron said
Biosimilar medicines and generic medicines deliver huge cost savings to the NHS and taxpayer, freeing up funds for frontline patient care.
The Sandoz expansion is a vote of confidence in the UK’s world-leading life sciences sector, boosting economic growth, delivering a raft of new, affordable treatments and improving the resilience of our supply chains.
