Tony Jones
Chief Executive Officer, One Nucleus
There’s a growing sense of optimism among UK biotech leaders brought about by the rise in venture financing and progress being made in the UK Life Sciences Sector Plan 2025 goals and a healthy M&A dynamic.
Notable have been the £1bn deals by Myricx Bio and Isomorphic Labs, creating impressive headlines while demonstrating the value the industry places on UK innovation. Below these headline makers, there is improved deal flow at earlier-stage biotechs, enabling some to move towards or into clinical development.
UK biotech’s challenges
With these blooming roses in the UK biotech garden, there are inevitably thorns too. These include the continuing high cost of capital slowing down the shift from risk-off to risk-on investor sentiment; investor pressure on companies to focus on lead assets over the discovery pipeline, leading to a reduction of lab-based discovery roles; and increased global competition, particularly from China, squeezing competitiveness of UK-based contract research organisations (CROs) and early-stage partnering deal seekers.
The strengths of the UK remain in place, and it’s about how the UK sector responds
to the changing competitiveness landscape that matters
Amid competition, UK sector’s strengths remain
Competition isn’t new. India has provided cheaper CRO services, and the US, Europe, among others, have competed on innovation supply for decades. The strengths of the UK remain in place, and it’s about how the UK sector responds to the changing competitiveness landscape that matters.
These issues, and more, will be front and centre at the keynote debates at the Genesis 2026 conference this December. Topics include how policies can incentivise investors and entrepreneurs, UK strengths in rare diseases R&D and innovation in business models.
