Pharmaceutical innovation and R&D investment in the UK

Expenditure on research and development by the pharmaceutical industry in the UK has increased five-fold in real terms since 1964, whilst the rate of introduction of novel medicines and their sales, allowing for inflation, have remained approximately constant. One of the reasons the industry has been able to afford the higher investment in R&D is because its marketing has become far more international. In the UK the average effective patent life of new products has decreased to less than 5 years at launch, making it difficult to see how development expenditure for most products can be recouped before patent expiry without significant international sales.