| It gives me great pleasure to be here at this Commonwealth Partnering Forum.
The UK has a very strong biotech industry. This stems from our excellent scientific base. With only 1 % of the world's population, the UK funds 4.5% of the world's science and produces 8% of the world's scientific papers, and receives 9% of citations. One of our research institutes, the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, has produced 8 Nobel prize winners in science.
The UK biotechnology industry leads in Europe by a fair margin and globally we would claim that we are second only to the United States of America. UK companies represent 46% of the European listed biotechnology companies, 63% of biotechnology market capitalisations, and over 50% of new European biotechnology drugs in late stage clinical trials are from the United Kingdom. There are 550 or 700 UK biotechnology companies, depending on how you classify them, employing around 45,000 people. Our science budget is growing at a rate of 7% a year in real terms, and we have put an R&D tax credit in place for both large and small firms. The UK Capital Gains Tax on unlisted companies is now only 10% if the investment is held for two years. Added to this we have a stable economic framework in the UK. We have also recently passed legislation to allow embryonic stem cell research to go ahead in the pursuit of cures for disease.
Biotechnology is a global industry, both in markets and in research and development.
Canada, New Zealand, Australia and UK know each other very well. Through our Commonwealth heritage we share traditions of medicine and life sciences education, to which each has added its own development, indigenous strengths; and in the wider field of agricultural biotechnology, UK admires the pace of commercial development of our partners.
Despite this, our biotechnology industries do not know each other as well as they ought. This forum is one step towards remedying this. There will be others this year, as the UK will be sending Government- and industry- sponsored missions to Australia and Canada later this year.
Recently the UK government took steps to strengthen the infrastructure needed to support the international dimension of our science and technology policies. We doubled the number of dedicated Science and Technology attachés based in our embassies overseas. These new posts included the key areas across North America, in Europe and in the Asia/Pacific region. The Science and Technology attachés report on science policy and technology developments overseas and encourage collaboration, inward investment and trade, developing links for the benefit of the UK research community and industry.
So without more ado let the partnering begin, and let's begin to build the bridges that will expand our national horizons to more global ones.
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