Novartis has warned the Government to reduce R&D bureaucracy to increase innovation or it will move its UK operations overseas.

Jon Symonds, Global Finance Director of Novartis, said that Britain is losing its competitive edge to emerging markets and called for the Government to streamline its R&D approach.

“One of the characteristics of the UK is a very low up-take on innovation. Sitting in another part of the business allocating my resources, if we don’t see the up-take in the UK resources will be allocated elsewhere,” said Mr Symonds.

To address the issue the pharmaceutical giant has arranged a meeting of scientists, NHS trustees and Government officials in London.

Novartis allocates around $10bn globally to research and development a year. Speaking in The Telegraph Mr Symonds said it usually costs a pharma company around $1bn to bring a new drug to market. However, he added there’s only a small window of opportunity to recoup this investment before products are exposed to generic competition.

Mr Symonds is expected to tell attendees at the crisis meeting that “the placement of research is increasingly globally competitive: we can and must make choices over where we invest.”

He will highlight how the Swiss-based company has chosen to invest in Shanghai, Russia and Brazil because the “one thing these markets have in common is that they have each recognised the need to shift from being a consumer of innovation to a generator of innovation.”

A withdrawal by Novartis would be another blow to the UK pharma industry. Pfizer cut 2,400 jobs last year when it closed R&D activities at its facility in Sandwich, Kent. Novartis UK currently employs around 3,500 people across eight sites.

Ana Nicholls, Healthcare Analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said that Novartis is right to warn the Government over its prolong R&D processes – especially at a time when emerging markets are making “determined efforts to boost innovations in their pharma industries.”

She added that the Government has tried to make the “UK more attractive for pharma R&D” through schemes such as the Patent Box and with its proposed changes to the Patents Act. But she warned “Novartis wants the Government to go further and streamline the whole trial and approval process – a push that will no doubt be supported by GSK, AstraZeneca and others.”

Pfizer has opened a new £7m cold storage facility near Portsmouth that will be among Europe’s largest vaccine stores.

The new facility at the company’s Havant packaging and distribution site can store up to 38.4 million doses of vaccines and injectable medicines.

Its vaccines packaging line is believed to be the world’s fastest complex syringe packaging system.

As Pfizer goes ahead with the plan to close its R&D facility in Sandwich, Kent, the new storage facility reflects a positive shift in its UK strategy.

Science Minister David Willetts, who opened the new facility, commented: “This £7 million investment from Pfizer will deliver a cutting-edge cold storage facility and comes on top of £26.3 million already invested in a state-of-the-art biotechnology packaging facility.

“This reflects the enormous importance Pfizer attaches to its UK operations and its ability to serve the global pharmaceutical community.”

Jon Tucker, site leader for Pfizer at Havant, noted that the site was already recognised as a Centre of Excellence for cold chain packaging and distribution.

“We have a specialist team here that have developed technologies that are leading the way in this complex area of supply and logistics,” he said.

“It all goes together to make something very special, a £7 million building that has 3,500 pallet spaces to store life-changing and life-saving medicines. These get shipped to 122 destinations around the world.”

Pfizer is working with a property consortium to fill its recently-closed Sandwich facility with life science companies.

The Discovery Park site, where Viagra was developed in the 1990s, will become an Enterprise Zone leased to multiple life science companies for R&D.

Pfizer itself will lease some of the facilities, where 650 of its employees still work following the closure of the main facility in 2011.

The site provides about 280,000 square metres of accommodation, including many specialist life science laboratories.

According to a Pfizer spokesperson, the company “has entered into a period of legal exclusivity with a consortium led by London & Metropolitan and financed by a major European institutional real estate investor for the sale of the Discovery Park campus in Sandwich, Kent.

“This announcement is a positive milestone in the transition of Discovery Park to becoming an R&D led multiple-use campus with Enterprise Zone status.”

Following discussions with London and Metropolitan, local Conservative MP Laura Sandys commented that the property consortium has a “very clear vision about having a strong life-science park that will attract people internationally”.

Merck (MSD outside the US) topped the job-cutting charts in 2011 as the industry witnessed another year of workforce reductions after a series of cost-cutting measures from a number of pharma giants.

Merck revealed plans in July to reduce its workforce by 12,000 to 13,000 following its merger in 2009 and to realign expenses with the expected reduction in revenue when Singulair loses its exclusivity in August, in an attempt to save $1.5billion.

Pfizer followed Merck after it after cut thousands of jobs after planning to close R&D plants in Sandwich, Kent, at a cost of around 2,400 jobs and in Connecticut accounting for a further 1,100 positions. An additional 500 employees in Germany and 220 in Spain have also reportedly been axed.

The world’s largest research-based pharma company aims to cut its R&D budget by $1.5 billion after realigning its investigational priorities and following the loss of exclusivity on its blockbuster drug Lipitor.

Novartis came third when wielding the axe after it revealed plans to reduce its workforce by 2,000 in an attempt to save $200 million a year. Workers were relieved of their duties at sites across Europe and reportedly in New Jersey. However, the company did invest somewhere in the region of $600 on a new R&D facility in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Abbott Laboratories followed in fourth position after it revealed at the start of last year that it would tackle the challenging regulatory environment by cutting 1,900 employees, or 6% of its staff. Further upheaval is also expected in 2012 when the company completes its breakup of the company into one focused pharmaceutical business and one solely for medical products.

AstraZeneca completed the top-five after it shed more than 1,500 positions in the US and Europe last year as it braced itself for the expiration of patents on brands on Seroquel by reducing its American sales team by nearly a quarter. The London-based company did however increase its presence in the emerging Chinese market.

Teva Pharmaceuticals, Sanofi, Johnson & Johnson, Eisai and Bayer Healthcare completed the top-ten companies for job losses as the industry struggled to compensate for major brand patent expiries, a challenging healthcare environment and a need to align expenses with growth targets.

Generic manufacturer Mylan has agreed a $17.5 million deal with Pfizer for the exclusive rights to develop, manufacture and commercialise a portfolio of respiratory products.

As part of the deal, Mylan will have licensing rights to Pfizer’s generic equivalent to GSK’s Advair and Seretide.

Heather Bresch, Mylan President, says the agreement offers a “significant opportunity for our generics business”.

The agreement will also see Mylan retaining staff at Pfizer’s respiratory inhalation development team at Discovery Park in Sandwich, Kent. Other former Pfizer staff will be located in Cambridge.

Under the terms of the agreement Mylan will have rights to Pfizer’s dry powder inhaler (DPI) technology platform, as well as the opportunity to negotiate on existing compounds during different stages of their development in the Pharma giant’s pipeline.

Mylan will have to pay the costs for any remaining development and commercialisation for the transferred products. Additional payments will also be made once the deal is completed, depending on the regulatory and commercial success of the portfolio.

Advair Diskus and Seretide Diskus are inhaled fixed-dose combinations of Fluticasone Propionate and Salmeterol which are delivered via a DPI and used to treat asthma and COPD.

On completion of the deal, Mylan with gain the exclusive commercialisation rights for Seretide in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, as well as in the EU and European Free Trade Association countries. The two companies will have the co-promotion rights to the product in the rest of the world.

About 650 jobs will be saved at Pfizer’s R&D plant in Sandwich, Kent (pictured) – 300 more than previously announced in June.

So far, 800 staff members have left their positions at the Discovery Park, with a further 700 expected to leave by the end of 2012, with 250 employees relocating to other UK sites, said the company.

The pharmaceutical company announced in February that the research and development facility in east Kent will close, which employed 2,400 people.

The site was then obtained by the Government in August and named part of its Enterprise Zone, to encourage the creation of more jobs and to cut taxes.

Despite Kent County Council commenting that it would take ten years for the site to recover the gap left by the pharma giant, interest has been shown in the space, including from former Pfizer employees who established a new company at the plant in September.

Pfizer said it would continue its phased exit by 2012 and would review the retained operation within a few years as part of its business planning.

Former Pfizer employees have established a research networking firm to be based at their previous workplace in Sandwich, Kent (pictured).

Seven ex-Pfizer staff members will be part of The Research Network, “a bit like a dating agency for scientists”, as described by its CEO, Andrew McElroy.

He explained that the company would help biotech and pharmaceutical companies connect with partners for outsourcing research productivity.

“We are a talented team of experienced drug discovery scientists who have a broad knowledge of the scientific services market place, what things cost, how long projects will take and who provides the best service.”

Pfizer put the site up for sale in June, with the Government naming the Discovery Park as an Enterprise Zone.

Kent County Council has previously warned that financial recovery in the area could take up to a decade, but MPs have since begun campaigning for investment interest in the site.

Significant interest has been shown in the site, hoping to attract around 190 businesses, which will in turn create around 2,500 new jobs, replacing the 2,400 lost when Pfizer decided to close the plant in February.

The drug giant was previously criticised for its lack of support to those who were made redundant, and only retained 350 employees at the plant until it vacates the premises by the end of 2012.

MPs are campaigning to continue a pharmaceutical presence at Pfizer’s site in Sandwich, Kent (pictured), after receiving 'Enterprise Zone' status last week.

The aim is to maintain the site as a life sciences location when Pfizer leaves the plant next year. In June, Pfizer agreed to keep 350 employees working at the plant until the US firm exits the site next year, incurring the total loss of 2,500 jobs.

It is hoped that the incentives of the Enterprise Zone will help to attract 190 businesses providing 2,500 new jobs, ideally headed by young people and former Pfizer employees, claimed Kent MP Greg Clarke.

Mr Clarke said: “We hope to continue the tradition of scientific research at Sandwich and benefit from the skills the area already has”.

MP Laura Sandys said that there are opportunities in “renewables, pharmaceuticals, food science, even aerospace”.

Ms Sandys has travelled across the Channel to try to promote the Discovery Park to potential European businesses and investors, claiming that she “will sell east Kent”.

Science Minister David Willetts is also supporting the UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). He confirmed that the “UKTI and BIS will work with Discovery Park to get overseas investment and business interest in the site.”

Mr Clarke added: “In ten years’ time we will be able to look here and not just think of Pfizer but see a world centre of excellence for scientific research”.

The next step is to obtain tourism funding and to hopefully be successful in a Regional Growth Fund (RGF) bid, says Dover District Council Leader Paul Watkins.

Details of successful bids are expected to be announced in late Autumn.

Pfizer’s previous home (pictured) in East Kent will now be used as part of the Government’s Enterprise Zone bid to create more jobs and cut taxes.

The package could support up to 2,600 jobs and 190 businesses at the recently named Discovery Park in Sandwich.

The Enterprise Zone aims to attract new start up businesses and other investors with simplified planning rules and millions of pounds in tax breaks to promote growth.

Laura Sandys, South Thanet MP, previously said that the scheme “will actually drive change and make the difference”.

The drugs giant said in February that the base would close by the end of 2012, which retained 350 out of 2,400 jobs.

Pfizer previously struggled to encourage interest in the site after it went on the market in June.

Government minister, Greg Clark, said: “The people of Kent, its local businesses and civic leaders are ready to take up the reins of the local economy, with the Discovery Park at the centre of their plan to accelerate growth.”

The Enterprise Zone in Sandwich joins nine others across the country created by the Government, expected to include locations in Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds, London, Nottingham, and the North East.

The gap left by the closure of Pfizer’s Sandwich base in east Kent has sparked warnings that recovery could take ten years.

Councillor Paul Carter of Kent County Council has said that although there had been interest in the site, it could take a decade for the region to recover from thousands of job losses.

The drugs giant announced in February that only 350 jobs would be saved out of the 2,400 employees at the facility.

Pfizer has said it will “continue to actively market” the site as ‘Discovery Park’ with its brokers. John Westwood, Real Estate Director at Pfizer, says “there has been interest, and we are continuing to pursue those avenues”.

But Councillor Carter has warned a buyer would need to be patient and allow time for the site to deliver results.

After the closure was announced, a task force of politicians was set up to support new business and employment on the Pfizer site.

Laura Sandys, Conservative MP, South Thanet, and a member of the task force, attacked the pharma giant for the speed of the redundancies: “Pfizer is exiting or creating redundancies too quickly for us to be able to secure that finance and that investment from private sector companies.”

Pfizer said there will be a phased exit of the site in Ramsgate Road by 2012. The site was put on the market in June.