The government has identified life sciences as one of the sectors it wants to see expand as part of its wider growth agenda, according to the minister responsible for delivering that strategy, speaking to West Midlands News at a moment when the region is pushing hard to build its own reputation in the sector.
A sector for growth
Dan Tomlinson MP, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury and Minister for Growth, was appointed to the role in July. Discussing the government’s economic priorities, he singled out life sciences as an area ministers want to see grow further.
“Life Sciences is one of the sectors in the economy that the government has identified that we want to see growing more in the future,” Tomlinson said.
He pointed to the UK’s research base as a particular strength underpinning that ambition. “We’re one of the best countries in the world at Life Sciences at bringing together our academics and top universities,” he said, adding: “We want to, of course, make sure we are backing and supporting that sector.”
Government committed to investing in the sector
Central to that support, according to Tomlinson, is making sure the state’s own investment vehicles are working in step with ministers’ industrial priorities.
“Part of it is about making sure the public financial bodies that this government has set up and grown, so that’s the National Wealth Fund and the British Business Bank, that they are aligned with the government’s priorities on supporting these sectors and are investing, whether that is chipping in grants, or loans, or taking a share in businesses with high growth potential and coming alongside them to ensure that private investors too can see that it’s worth investing here.”
Existing government support
The British Business Bank’s dedicated Life Sciences Investment Programme, launched in 2021 with £250 million of funding, has already committed £180 million directly into 19 UK
life sciences companies and helped draw in £689 million from private investors, according to the bank’s own figures published this year. Two of the companies it backed, Nimbus Therapeutics and Eyebio, have since been acquired by pharmaceutical giants Takeda and Merck respectively, in deals worth up to $7 billion combined.
Life sciences is already an important sector in the West Midland
For the West Midlands, the minister’s comments land at a significant moment for a sector the region has been quietly building for years. Life sciences already employs more than 17,000 people locally and contributes an estimated £6.49 billion to the UK economy annually, according to the Life Science Skills Report produced by the Science Industry Partnership West Midlands and the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership. Close to 10,000 new and replacement roles are forecast to be needed in the sector regionally over the next decade.
Much of that growth is expected to cluster around the £210 million Birmingham Health Innovation Campus, now under construction in the city’s Life Sciences Quarter, which developers say could ultimately support up to 10,000 jobs once complete.
Life Sciences Week returns for 2026
The region’s profile in the sector faces a further test this month, when Birmingham hosts the return of Life Sciences Week from 21 to 25 September.
Organised by the One Thousand Trades Group. The week brings together industry, academics and investors to focus on drug discovery, medical devices and diagnostics, university-industry partnerships, and investment in scaling businesses.
Long term vision of sector growth
Whether the alignment between Whitehall’s growth ambitions and the West Midlands’ own life sciences push translates into further investment on the ground remains to be seen. But Tomlinson’s comments to West Midlands News suggest the sector will stay a government priority as ministers look to spread economic growth more evenly across the country, a test the West Midlands is increasingly keen to put itself forward for.
