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In 2005, the United Kingdom world trade in pharmaceuticals was valued at £12.1bn for exports and £8,7bn for imports, which created a crude trade balance surplus of £3.4bn. The principal overseas markets are Western Europe, North America and Japan. Recently, the largest growth has been in medicines that act on the respiratory system, followed by cardiovascular, muscular and skeletal, anti-infective and alimentary tract remedies. In 2004, 686 million prescription items were dispensed in the UK, an increase of 5.3 per cent on 2003.  79.1 per cent of all prescription items were written generically.

GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca (UK-Swedish) are the two largest UK-based companies. In 2004, 73,000 people were directly employed in the UK pharmaceutical industry, with 27,000 working directly in R&D and  with another 250,000 in related sectors. The industry invested about £3.2 billion in UK-based R&D in 2004. This investment repesents around a quarter of the UK's total manufacturing industry expenditure. The total NHS R&D budget including PRP for 2005-06 is £650m.  AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline are the UK's top two companies in terms of R&D expenditure, with the US companies Pfizer, Merck and Eli Lilly, and the Swiss company Novartis also significant investors.

Major developments pioneered in the UK include semi-synthetic penicillins and cephalosporins, both powerful antibiotics, and new treatments for ulcers, asthma, arthritis, meningitis C, cancer, migraine, HIV/AIDS, coronary heart disease, hypertension, fungal infections, erectile dysfunction and schizophrenia. The UK pharmaceutical industry is second only to the US in the discovery and development of leading medicines, including 18 of the world's current top 75 best-selling medicines. UK laboratories place about 20 new pharmaceutical products on the market each year.

For further information contact MPI-Industry@dh.gsi.gov.uk at the Department of Health or the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI). ABPI is the trade association for about a hundred pharmaceutical companies in the UK producing prescription medicines. Its member companies research, develop, manufacture and supply more than 90 per cent of the medicines prescribed through the National Health Service (NHS). It also represents the views of the pharmaceutical industry to the Government, politicians, academia, the media and the general public. It principally speaks for the R&D companies rather than those producing generic or over the counter medicines.