Source? If you look at expenditure on pharmaceutical research and development in the UK vs. the US, you see that 9% of global R&D expenditure is UK based, and 49% is US based.
This very closely matches the population differences between the UK and US (at a population of 63M vs. 317M).
Within Europe, the UK represents 23% of all pharmaceutical R&D funding; France is only slightly lower at 20% of the total.
Source is a very close friend of mine who's doing research in biology, and who knows how things work here vs the US.
He witnessedthe difference in how the interns are paid, how the researcher are paid, how the labs are funded, gow modern the equipments are, and how much money the pharma corp are ready to spend todevelop new drugs. And this is a completely different world.
Now you're perfectely right and the market size is a big factor. I should have compared europe vs the US. The conclusion would have been the same.
How people is paid also reflects the cost of education - in Europe higher education is vastly cheaper than in the US (in many cases free). If American researchers end up with $200,000 in college debt and a European has $10,000, they'll be requiring different salaries.
The research expenditure isn't meaningful to the consumer. The question is where the companies intend to profit off of that research, and whether they would bother if they were only reimbursed what the NHS pays.
He witnessedthe difference in how the interns are paid, how the researcher are paid, how the labs are funded, gow modern the equipments are, and how much money the pharma corp are ready to spend todevelop new drugs. And this is a completely different world.
Now you're perfectely right and the market size is a big factor. I should have compared europe vs the US. The conclusion would have been the same.