THE government is to assemble a high-powered team of executives and entrepreneurs from the British life-sciences sector to promote the industry on the world stage and encourage inward investment into the country.

UK Trade & Investment, the government’s international business-development organisation, is expected to announce this week the creation of a 12-man strategy group to be chaired by Chris Brinsmead, president of Astra Zeneca UK, the drug developer.

Other members of the UK Life Science Marketing Strategy Implementation Board will include Andrew Hotchkiss, managing director of the UK arm of Ely Lilly, the pharmaceuticals group, Mark Ferguson, chief executive of Ren-ovo, the biotech company, and Kevin Cox, former president of Avecia.

The board will consider which overseas markets offer the best opportunities for British life-science companies and to encourage foreign businesses to invest in the UK.

The board will also examine ways to develop a consistent marketing message for all parts of the industry to promote itself. It is scheduled to hold its first meeting this week.

The creation of the new forum is part of UK Trade & Investment’s attempts to promote what it regards as the five key sectors of the British economy; life sciences, energy, the creative industries, financial services and information, communication and telecoms.

The plans for each of these are at different stages, with the financial services and creative industries being the most advanced of the five.

The life-sciences sector is a big contributor to British exports. In 2006, pharmaceutical companies sold more than £12 billion worth of goods overseas while the healthcare products and services industries delivered over £14 billion in exports.

Domestically, there are about 400,000 people employed in the British life-sciences industry. The UK is also thought to have the largest pipeline of new products in Europe. It is estimated that 15 of the world’s 75 best-selling medicines were developed in Britain.

Part of the new strategy board’s remit will be to ensure that these figures continue to grow.

Lord Digby Jones, minister for trade, said: “The UK is Europe’s top location for research and development and a global hub for scientific research, but retaining this position in the face of growing competition from abroad is a significant challenge.”

He added that the new strategy board would give the industry a “powerful voice” on the international stage.

The move by the government to promote British expertise comes at a challenging time for the the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies, many of which are beginning to reappraise the way they invest and carry out research and development.

It has become increasingly difficult to bring new drugs to market, in part because of much tougher regulation.

At the same time, the large pharmaceutical businesses face the prospect of many block-buster treatments coming off-patent, thereby opening the way for makers of generic drugs to begin manufacturing them.

To cope, the pharma industry is cutting costs and shedding staff.

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