GlaxoSmithKline has given warning that a lack of UK science graduates is forcing Britain’s largest drugs company to recruit from overseas to fill key research posts.

Jackie Hunter, a senior vice-president who leads one of GSK’s main global drug development centres, said that Britain is suffering an acute shortfall of scientists. Dr Hunter said that it was “absolutely vital” for the UK to address the issue to ensure the long-term competitiveness of the country’s pharmaceutical industry and to prevent a gradual drift of jobs and investment overseas. The sector contributed £3.4 billion in exports to Britain’s trade balance in 2004 — more than any other industry sector.

She said that the situation was forcing GSK to seek more and more recruits from France, Spain, Germany and India. In one area, synthetic chemistry, GSK said that just 40 of 70 new placements at its research facilities in Harlow, Essex, and Stevenage, Hertfordshire, were were graduates of UK universities. Dr Hunter said that the problem had been compounded by the decision of several universities, such as Exeter, to scrap their chemistry departments due to rising cost pressures. “A lot of universities look at laboratory-based courses as something that is very expensive for them to run,” she said. “The issue is the number of places. There is a real need across the industry [for more UK graduates].”

In response to the staffing shortage, GSK has forged links with the Société Française de Chimie and other overseas organisations to attract enough high-calibre graduates.

“It’s an increasingly globalised labour market,” Dr Hunter said. GSK employs 15,000 people in research and development globally, 6,000 of them in the UK.

Britain’s pharmaceutical industry employed 73,000 people directly and hundreds of thousands more indirectly in support roles. The value of UK pharmaceutical exports in 2005 was £12.2 billion, or more than £166,000 per employee.

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