By bizn_fun 
Sir John Bell, emeritus regius professor of medicine at Oxford University, told the BBC’s Today programme that he’d spoken to several bosses of major companies in the past six months, “and they’re all in the same space, and that is, they’re not going to do any more investing in the UK”.
One of the problems, he said, was the amount of money the NHS spends on medicines.
“Ten years ago, we used to spend 15% of our healthcare spend on pharmaceuticals. Now it’s 9%. The rest of the world, the OECD, are sitting between 14 and 20%,” Sir John said.
“The large companies do have to work in a system where they can sell their products, and if they can’t sell their products here, they’ll go and do their business somewhere else.”
Richard Torbett, head of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, said the decision was “an incredible blow”.
“We’ve really got to see it as a wake up call to try and understand what is driving companies to make these difficult decisions and what can we do to turn that round,” he told the BBC’s Wake Up To Money programme.
“The lack of competitiveness of the UK is the big thing that’s driven the decision,” he added.
“We’ve got systematic under-investment in the products that come out of the end of innovation.”