Propagating innovation should be central to U.K. growth strategy — Daniel Mahony

One of U.K. biotech’s premier figures discusses dilemma and opportunities for the U.K. and Europe in capturing value from their innovations

The U.K. is excellent at invention and science, and creating institutions to further innovation, but poor at capturing their economic value, says Daniel Mahony, a problem that various forces in the U.K. are now putting serious efforts into solving.

Mahony, one of the major influential figures in U.K. biotech, is a senior partner in growth investments at Novo Holdings, and was until December chair of the U.K.’s BioIndustry Association (BIA). On The BioCentury Show, Mahony discussed the future of U.K. and European biotech, and the intersection of reforms related to financing and clinical trials, as well as the need for a rethink on drug pricing.

Mahony outlines his views on why the creation of institutions such as U.K. Biobank, Our Future Health and others has benefited the industry, but not really the taxpayers who funded them, and why propagation of innovation throughout the hospitals is critical for solving this at the same time as bringing better care for patients. 

If the U.K. succeeds, that can create a template for other regions also trying to build their ecosystems. “If you could find, say, the best way of getting cell therapy propagated across the whole of the U.K., so it gets out into all of those places of society where those patients really need it — you can lift that up and take that into many other countries, including the U.S., but certainly into other systems that have socialized central medical systems.”

Mahony also discussed the importance of pension fund reform, and the background of the issue in the U.K., how he thinks about measuring success — weighted more on revenue than market cap — and how drug pricing is a structural problem that Europe and the U.K. need to address.