Globally the pharmaceutical industry is working on researching and developing more than 7,000 potential new medicines and vaccines to treat and sometimes cure conditions like cancers, Alzheimer’s, diabetes and very rare genetic diseases.
Since the 1960’s medicines and vaccines have helped increase life expectancy by more than ten years, turned HIV AIDs from a death sentence to a manageable disease and made strides in eradicating malaria. We’re now seeing exciting new personalised therapies treating and curing more diseases including cancers.
Every year our companies put hundreds of billions of pounds into new research and development – more than any other industry.
Despite many failures, some of these medicines and vaccines will help to transform the lives of NHS patients in the future.
It’s a high-risk industry, but one which helps save and prolong the lives of millions of people around the world every day.