Whither Cambridge? Or should that be ‘wither’ Cambridge?

AstraZeneca famously blamed the lack of an incentivised tax regime for its decision to build a new £297 million manufacturing facility in Ireland rather than England.

But CEO Pascal Soriot went further: “You need an environment that gives you good returns and incentives to invest,” he said. There was another sting in this tale (SIC).

Soriot added that the UK had one of the best research bases in the world BUT: “If you want a life sciences sector then you need more than research. And you need to know that the products you are developing are going to help patients – otherwise you do research but you don’t develop here. You develop in countries where you know your patients are going to get access and you are going to get a price that can justify the investment.”

Just for good measure Mene Pangalos, Executive Vice-President, BioPharmaceuticals R & D for AstraZeneca, doubted that reorganisation and “shuffling things” changed the Government’s overall strategy. Not quite reshufling deckchairs on the Titanic just yet but you get the drift.

“What we need to see is all the strategic initiatives Pascal has been talking about around clinical trials, renewable energy and an environment that’s encouraging innovation.”

In terms of Cambridge losing out on major developments by global gamechangers the Government has form. Twice under Tory rule Business Weekly planted in Whitehall laps the opportunity to bring Apple into a data centre near Ely with potentially thousands of jobs in the offing.

The UK was up against Ireland and Scandinavian countries. Both times the Government refused to make any concessions on corporation tax and this region and the UK suffered through their intransigence.

The situation is worsening! UK corporation tax rises from 19 per cent – the 2022 rate – to 25 per cent this April. Ireland’s rate is 12.5 per cent: Ireland also offers a 25 per cent credit on qualifying R & D expenditures to give a total effective tax deduction of 37.5 per cent.

Also from this April, R & D tax relief in Britain is expected to be restricted to activities undertaken in the UK.

One tech entrepreneur and now Cambridge angel, who sold his business to a US giant for a small fortune, told me once that all the business community wanted from the Government was to “get out of the effing way.”

The situation years on is far more serious than that: Cambridge alone needs thousands more top tech engineers for starters against fierce global opposition. So where are the incentives for Indian, American, Polish and other superb engineering talents worldwide to come to Britain? 

We need positive tax discrimination to attract home grown companies to stay here and flourish; to attract more money and bodies from Big Pharma – to join up the dots to complete a life science ecosystem.

We need a similarly stimulating environment in high technology so our companies can attract top engineering talent ahead of the US, China and most other European and global territories. We need to ditch the increasingly damaging Brexit.

In the last year alone, we have seen Cambridgeshire-based graphene pioneer Paragraf threaten to quit Britain for the US because of lack of Government support for ambitious innovators.

We have seen life science A-listers Abcam and AVEVA pull out of London listings and push their shares in the US; we have endured futile attempts by the Government to persuade Arm to IPO in Britain rather than the States where there is far more appetite and money to back such ventures.

Now comes a blistering verdict on the new Department for Science, Innovation and Technology from Gary Brotman, CEO of Secondmind, a Cambridge-based DeepTech company that helps carmakers design better cars, faster and achieve sustainability through generative machine learning. He warns that UK startups will struggle to innovate with one hand tied behind their backs.

While Brotman welcomes the creation of the dedicated Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, he seeks specifics on how this new department will fill the gaps created by the Government’s recent decisions to reduce investment in critical programmes that have fostered innovation.

He tells Business Weekly: “We welcome the creation of a dedicated Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to foster innovation, particularly at a time when the UK’s ranking in critical technology sectors like AI (artificial intelligence) is at risk of slipping.

“The UK appears to be on track to lose its long-standing third-place position on the Global AI Index to Canada this year, with Israel and Singapore not far behind.

“Recent developments such as the R & D tax credit reductions for small businesses; the closure of Tech Nation, an organisation that has proven itself to be essential to the UK's leadership in emerging technology; and post-Brexit trading business barriers are thwarting the ability of UK start-ups to attract talent and secure investment needed to innovate and grow.

“To ensure the UK is the ‘most innovative economy in the world’, the UK government needs a long-term strategy, a clearly defined execution plan, and funding commensurate with the return expected.

“And to succeed, the new department will need effective, experienced leadership and experts across the organisation who understand the practical realities and challenges of building new companies and technologies that have the potential to solve tomorrow’s problems.”

Back to the life science sector for the last word. Tony Jones, who spearheads the excellent gateway organisation One Nucleus, believes that establishing a new ministerial department focused on science, technology and innovation is a step in the right direction and is welcome.

“It certainly provides the excellence in clusters like Cambridge a voice at the table. Also welcome are the nice words, bold vision for a science superpower and sentiments of how important innovation is to the future UK economy spoken by our political leaders.

“That said, nice words, rearranging departments and a bold vision will only be helpful if there is a credible plan for real actions to follow that put the rhetoric into practice.

“It's very important that progress is made on areas such as access to the Horizon Europe scheme, tax incentives to locate innovative businesses in the UK, immigration rules and reward for innovative medicines and technologies.

“Providing research funding with one hand such as the commitment to the increased proportion of GDP whilst taking support away with the other by, for example, reducing NHS technology adoption spend and R & D Tax credits, could leave an unfavourable balance for innovative life science businesses to locate, scale and manufacture in the UK. 

“This, in turn, would hinder the attraction of talent, corporate investment and later stage venture investment to the sector going forward.”

Ditto the entire innovation Cluster that has built up around Cambridge, chiefly because of a brilliant University and its talented and ambitious alumni.

If only there was a similar degree of brainpower, knowhow and commitment evident among our muddled and muddied mandarins in weary, woebegone Westminster.