What Burnham needs to know about life sciences 

The Life Science Sector Plan's first annual update landed at the end of the political era in which it was written. Work began after Labour's 2024 landslide, when a decade-long framework tied to the Industrial Strategy and 10 Year Health Plan looked capable of surviving at least a full parliament. A year after publication, Keir Starmer has left and Andy Burnham has replaced him. So what does the new Prime Minister need to know about one of the UK's most important sectors? 

Life sciences have a key role to play in his place-based growth model. Indeed, he already know this. As Mayor, he presented Greater Manchester's sector as the product of institutions working together: universities, hospitals, research organisations, large companies, SMEs, local government and infrastructure. It fits his idea of a productive local state that convenes public and private actors around growth.  

Do not assume life sciences can simply be devolved. The sector remains unusually dependent on national and international policy. The NHS is its principal domestic customer. Medicines pricing is negotiated nationally. Regulation, health data governance and much of the clinical research system require UK-wide institutions. Pharmaceuticals and medtech are also exposed to trade policy, tariffs and the UK's relationships with the US and EU. Mayors can convene, connect and accelerate, but central government will continue to lead on much of what matters most.  

Resist reopening the Sector Plan, which has traction and industry buy-in. Its priorities reflect long-standing constraints on the sector rather than the preferences of one Prime Minister: clinical trials, regulation, health data, NHS adoption, manufacturing, scale-up finance and the commercial environment. There is little value in reopening a framework that is beginning to show progress. What could change are the metrics and means used to judge success, if his government is more interested in where growth happens, who benefits and how companies demonstrate their contribution to particular places. 

Medicines pricing will continue to be a difficult problem to solve. Burnham inherited the UK-US pharmaceutical arrangement, including the commitment to increase NHS medicines spending and the higher NICE cost-effectiveness threshold. The Starmer government presented it as central to improving the UK commercial environment and protecting exports. Critics see it as diverting money from other NHS services, and the issue has become increasingly salient over recent weeks. It is understandable that Burnham has not set out a settled position: scrapping the agreement would risk damaging relations with the US and reopening the investment concerns that dominated much of the past year. He should not revise it without the agreement of industry. As recently as last year, global boardrooms were pulling investment, and this should not be quickly forgotten 

The machinery of government changes carries real risk to alignment between industry and the health system. Splitting delivery across DBIST and a distracted DHSC threatens the alignment between the 10 Year Health Plan and the LSSP. Committing industry and health audiences to the same strategies took real effort, and there is a risk of reversing the last two years' progress in getting both working to a common line. For now, OLS's DSIT equities lift and shift into DBIST, so there is no immediate change to Spending Review allocations or headcount. That will likely change – the current generous settlement is exposed at the next fiscal event, under an orthodox, defence-first Healey Treasury that now also has social care to fund. 

What does this mean for the life sciences sector?

There is a need to clearly articulate your regional impact. While it is a high-wage sector, its offer to national economic growth is not in the sheer number of people employed, but instead through a multitude of factors: raising national productivity, attracting investment on R&D, exports and trade, driving innovation, improving population health, and direct employment. How this is expressed to devolved regions with local statistic but also the wider context is something companies will need to lock down early on. 

A stronger regional focus does not mean increased competition between clusters. Burnham has previously argued against forcing areas to compete with one another for grants, status and government attention. At a mayoral roundtable I attended while working in government, his argument was, in essence, that the UK should be capable of doing the research in Oxford and the development in Manchester, competing internationally rather than internally. 

Something on the regions is coming regardless. Officials are already developing proposals ahead of ministers. The LSSP is largely place-agnostic, OLS was never structured around regional engagement, and its governance boards do not reflect mayoral or devolved authorities. Expect that to change quickly. Two options are understood to be in play: keep the Sector Plan and add a regional package alongside it, potentially in tandem with a broader Industrial Strategy announcement, or rework the plan into something far more place-focused. Either way, there is concern that OLS's international work may be scaled back to provide capacity for the regional push. Burnham's own trailed ten-year plan sits awkwardly with the 10YHP and the LSSP, both with nine years left to run; industry will resist going back to the drawing board, because the diagnosis and the prescription would come out much the same, at the cost of a year's delivery. 

If you would like to discuss these issues further, please get in touch with our experts.

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