‘I’m optimistic about Britain’: Glaxo chief defies the gloom in upbeat New Year message

GSK’S boss has declared that she is a ‘great optimist’ about the UK economy.

In an upbeat message to bring in the New Year, Dame Emma Walmsley said Britain was ‘uniquely placed’ in the drug development market due to its high concentration of academic skill and high-profile companies.

‘I am a great optimist about the UK,’ said the pharma giant’s chief executive. ‘The UK is uniquely placed. We have big companies with global footprints. 

‘We have a biotech industry that is innovating very effectively. We have some of the best academic institutions in the world.’

The comments provided a much-needed antidote to the gloomy rhetoric surrounding the state of Britain’s economy as many critics continue to question the country’s global competitiveness.

Confident: GSK boss Dame Emma Walmsley (pictured) said Britain was ‘uniquely placed’ in the drug market due to its high concentration of academic skill and high-profile firms

There is growing optimism, however, that a recovery could be on the horizon as markets predict interest rate cuts from the Bank of England this year as well as tax cuts.

In an interview this week on the BBC’s Today programme, Walmsley, 54, said the NHS also gave Britain an advantage, particularly the ‘power’ of its vast archive of patient data. 

She said: ‘The rest of the world looks in on the UK and says “How amazing to have that”.’

But the sharing of NHS patient data with private companies has been a controversial issue amid fears over privacy. 

In November, the health service became embroiled in a row after awarding Palantir, a US-based firm known for its spy technology, a £300milion contract to create a huge data platform.

But Walmsley said that many would be supportive of sharing their data if it helped develop treatments.

She added: ‘Of course privacy matters. Of course, control and regulation of the data is absolutely essential. 

‘Of course it needs to be anonymised and of course everybody engaged with it needs to be profoundly responsible.

‘But in our experience, most citizens, if they think that by sharing anonymised data they will be able to contribute to the discovery of new solutions to terrible diseases, most do actually choose to participate.’

Walmsley also said the NHS and patients needed to acknowledge that the realities of the pharmaceutical sector meant drug prices would rise, saying there was ‘not a very good understanding’ of how the economics of the process functioned. 

New drugs are only covered by intellectual property protections for around a decade. Then, generic versions can be manufactured.

She said: ‘When a generic drug is launched the vast majority of our business disappears and you then have to replace it.’

She said governments and hospital operators needed to consider the ‘necessity to fuel and incentivise the next level of innovation’.

A row erupted last year when several pharma firms said the voluntary scheme for branded medicines pricing and access – which is designed to limit the amount the NHS spends on drugs – was stifling innovation in the sector.

A deal which favoured the pharma firms slightly more than the previous arrangement was agreed in November.

…but UK factories stuck in doldrums  

British manufacturers started the new year on the back foot – but are still faring better than rivals in the sclerotic eurozone.

Analytics giant S&P Global said its closely watched index of activity in UK factories – where scores under 50 show decline – slipped from 47.2 in November to 46.2 in December. 

The report came as the Institute of Directors (IoD) warned sentiment among bosses ‘ended the year in a relatively depressed place’.

Roger Barker, director of policy at the IoD, said: ‘It has been more or less stuck in the doldrums since last summer.’ But there was an even sharper decline in manufacturing activity in the single currency bloc. The index in eurozone factories was 44.4 last month, with Germany registering 43.3 and France 42.1, its lowest since May 2020.

‘The French manufacturing sector is stuck in a downward spiral,’ said Hamburg Commercial Bank economist Norman Liebke.

This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk