ABPI Launches R&D A-Z, Partnership With Patients

The pharmaceutical industry is the source of modern medicine, said Keith Jones, director-general of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, speaking last week in London at the launch of a new guide to UK pharmaceutical research, published by the ABPI.

The author of an A-Z of British Medicines Research, Mike Hall, said that R&D investment by ABPI companies has shown higher growth each year since 1982 than the annual rate of inflation, and that the industry accounts for 71% of disease-related research spending in the UK, compared with 19% for the research councils, 2% for other Department of Health sources and 8% for the charities.

The report shows that UK drug companies now spend over L2 billion ($3.2 billion) on R&D worldwide, and that in the UK alone, over 200 new medicines are in the pipeline. 10 of the world's top 35 medicines are the products of UK research, he added, and the industry's balance of payments surplus in 1994 was $1.67 billion.