The UK boss of the US drugmaker Moderna, which shot to prominence with its Covid vaccine during the pandemic, has defended the country after it was labelled the “worst in Europe” for drug pricing.
Darius Hughes spoke as he opened a £150m vaccine site in Oxfordshire, just days after MSD, AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly announced that they would ditch or pause planned UK investments amid a row over pricing between the pharmaceutical industry and the government.
Hughes, UK general manager for Moderna, said the company would continue to invest in the UK as part of its £1bn, decade-long partnership with the government.
“We’re here to invest,” said Hughes. “We’re here on a 10-year strategic partnership, and we will be investing heavily in R&D across that period.”
Earlier on Wednesday Dave Ricks, chief executive of Eli Lilly, maker of the Mounjaro weight-loss drug, called the UK “probably the worst country in Europe” for drug prices in an interview with the Financial Times, echoing comments made by other pharma executives.
Hughes said that was “a little harsh”, adding: “I don’t want to dull down some of the challenges that the rest of the industry have got, but we are in a different place. We’re here for pandemic preparedness, for the vaccine programmes, and to help protect British patients over the winter.”
Ricks said the UK’s rigorous pricing regime, under which it pays less for medicines than other developed countries, meant it would miss out on new drugs if it did not increase prices and scrap a contentious rebate scheme, known as VPAG, the voluntary scheme for branded medicines’ pricing, access and growth. VPAG negotiations over drug pricing between government and the industry broke down last month, and the government has yet to formally restart talks.
Hughes said Moderna was in a different position, as vaccines do not come under the VPAG scheme. “The uptake of innovative vaccines is very, very good across the NHS, and the payment of those is done through central contracts.”
Moderna’s new centre at the Harwell science campus, which hosts more than 250 organisations across health, technology and energy, will produce mRNA jabs for the NHS’s seasonal vaccination programmes. It has been granted a licence to make Covid jabs and will also apply for a licence to make flu vaccines.
Beyond respiratory diseases, the Moderna site will be researching how to use mRNA science in areas such as cancer, rare diseases and immune disorders. It employs 80 people in manufacturing as well as 60 scientists and lab technicians at the clinical research and development facility. The latter will also analyse samples from Moderna’s clinical trials globally.
The Moderna site can produce up to 100m mRNA vaccine doses a year, which could be ramped up to 250m in the event of a pandemic.
Hughes said that with mRNA technology Moderna can easily “change the code” and produce different vaccines in future – for Covid, a new flu variant or respiratory syncytial virus – and update them for new strains every season. Messenger RNA trains the body to recognise and destroy harmful cells.
Moderna’s chief executive, Stéphane Bancel, said its new centre marked “the first facility in the UK to manufacture an onshore supply of mRNA vaccines”.
He added: “Our strategic partnership with the UK has already delivered more than 20 clinical trials across 110 sites nationwide, making Moderna the largest commercial sponsor of trials in the country.” He said the centre, which was built in less than two years, “underscores the UK’s commitment to improving health security, both against global health emergencies and ongoing seasonal respiratory threats”.
Moderna’s opening was attended by the science minister, Patrick Vallance, who said last week that the government was determined to resolve the standoff with industry. He acknowledged that the UK’s spending on new medicines needed to rise from 9% of overall NHS spend.
Vallance said on Wednesday: “The pioneering work Moderna will be doing, here in the UK, on mRNA is a prime example of the opportunity we want to grasp.”
This week the US drugmaker Bristol Myers Squibb said it would sell its new schizophrenia treatment in the UK for the same price as in the US, the first time it has done this. Cobenfy will have a list price of $22,500 (£16,553) a year. If the drug is not made available on the NHS, the company might not launch in the UK.
