Eli Lilly boss: UK planning laws ‘impediment’ to investing

The boss of the world’s most valuable pharmaceutical company has told the BBC that the UK’s planning system puts companies off investing in the country.

Dave Ricks, chief executive of the obesity drug manufacturer Eli Lilly, said he had considered building a factory in the UK in the last decade, but chose another country instead.

He warned current planning processes were an “impediment” to building factories at speed, unlike in the US and Ireland.

“Mostly what they do is they pre-reserve land, they promise to cut through the red tape and layers of government,” Mr Ricks said.

Eli Lilly, along with its Danish rival Novo Nordisk, has developed a considerable lead over the rest of the pharmaceutical industry when it comes to obesity medication.

Its drugs, which include Zepbound and Mounjaro, are in such demand that the company cannot build factories quickly enough.

The country has operations in the US, Ireland and other European Union countries including Italy, France and Germany.

Mr Ricks said countries that “could present a path” in which the time taken to set up a pharmaceutical plant was reduced from five years to two was “very attractive”.

“In the UK – although I love visiting, it’s a wonderful county – it’s not the largest market so you have to overcome that with other attractiveness, whether that be workforce, asset delivery or economic incentives,” he said.

“You have to be candid, say ‘are we as competitive as we can be?’ And to date it’s been a little bit less, but I think it’s not unachievable.”