The UK financial development faces a paradox of two seemingly opposing pressures, but each could also be resolved by transferring in the identical course.
On the one hand, illness absence and long-term sick well being proceed to weigh on productiveness: 148.9 million working days had been misplaced to illness in 2024 (4.4 per employee), and financial inactivity stays elevated at the same time as charges fluctuate quarter to quarter. However, the federal government has explicitly positioned life sciences among the many UK’s precedence development sectors, recognising its potential to drive regional jobs, funding and higher well being.
With development nonetheless topping the political agenda, deliberate motion is critical to lastly shift the financial dial. In accordance projections from the Well being Basis, 2.5m extra folks in England might be residing with a significant sickness by 2040, a shift set to pile additional stress on the nation’s workforce, NHS and wider financial system.
Towards that backdrop, constructing a reputable, UK-anchored medical hashish trade just isn’t a distinct segment play; it’s a part of a broader life-sciences asset the nation can domesticate at house, creating expert jobs, retaining IP, and producing clinically helpful knowledge whereas bettering affected person choices and outcomes inside a regulated framework.
This piece, developed by Dalgety, Celadon Prescribed drugs and Glass Pharms, units out why cultivation within the UK is the muse for capturing that worth, economically and clinically, and what a sensible pathway ahead appears like.
The financial engine begins with cultivation
Domestically produced medical hashish flower has solely been out there within the UK for personal prescription since 2024 and the market share is starting to develop.
Nonetheless, round 90% of the hashish flower prescribed as a CBPM within the UK remains to be imported. That implies that jobs in cultivation, analysis and growth, breeding and put up harvest operations largely stay offshore, which in flip inhibits the innovation and enterprise growth that might result in higher outcomes each for UK sufferers and the nation as entire.
Cultivation is foundational for establishing a real UK medical hashish trade. On account of the early stage growth of the trade, we are actually seeing the industrial growth of a UK laboratory testing sector designed particularly for medical hashish.
Extraction services, and the event of recent kind components for cannabis-based medicines will seemingly comply with on from this. For a medical trial programme specifically and positively for any product that’s prone to be acceptable for NHS prescription, home cultivation is very fascinating because it offers a secure base for the required provide chains with fast iteration and fast prototyping then made rather more doable.
Cultivation acts as a price multiplier on the base of the availability chain enabling a doubtlessly huge variety of UK-based begin ups within the medical hashish sector to develop merchandise and concepts that will in any other case not exist in an import-only market.
Secure formularies based mostly on UK-cultivated merchandise give clinics an effective way of amassing compelling actual world proof on the efficacy of CBPMs, whereas imports are sometimes solely out there for a brief window after which exit of inventory.
This has a major unfavourable affect on sufferers which makes the argument for home cultivation and downstream services compelling. New cultivars are already being developed by UK cultivators with an emphasis on much less well-known cannabinoids equivalent to CBD, CBN and CBG which have vital potential in a medical-only market.
The web results of the event of UK cultivation might be extra dependable merchandise for UK sufferers with higher validation and a clearly signposted path ahead to wider entry and hopefully reimbursement by the NHS within the not-so-distant future.
Home cultivation is the anchor that turns a fragile, import-dependent market right into a UK life-sciences asset. At the moment, the overwhelming majority of CBPM flower disbursed privately is imported, and import volumes have surged.
UK officers reported that 2023 imports rose from 7 tonnes to fifteen tonnes versus 2022. That reliance pushes jobs, know-how and margin offshore, and it weakens provide resilience for sufferers. Against this, the primary prescriptions of UK-grown, EU-GMP flower in 2024/25 confirmed what a neighborhood base can unlock; shorter lead instances, tighter traceability and a platform for adjoining capabilities to kind round it.
With UK cultivation, merchandise are more likely to be secure and repeatable, making the The Nationwide Institute for Well being and Care Excellence (NICE) problem, specifically the requirement of proof constant sufficient to evaluate, genuinely manageable. Clinics can preserve constant formularies, run comparable research, and acquire dependable real-world knowledge with clear product id, dose, period and outcomes.
In flip, that helps auditable trials and a reputable cost-effectiveness case, somewhat than biking via short-lived imports.
That standardisation (Ph. Eur. strategies, batch traceability, outlined specs) is the precondition for any severe cost-effectiveness evaluation and future commissioning case. That stability issues in a system the place NICE steering is slim and proof requirements are excessive. Repeatable, documented provide is the precondition for credible research and any future commissioning case.
There may be additionally an vital macro rationale. The UK faces sustained stress from long-term sickness and illness absence (148.9 million working days misplaced in 2024). Inserting cultivation, and the QA/QC, knowledge and manufacturing that cluster round it, contained in the UK retains high-value jobs and IP onshore, aligns with the federal government’s life-sciences development agenda, and provides sufferers and clinicians a quicker, extra accountable pathway.
The Division for Science, Innovation and Expertise is searching for to extend the UK’s well being resilience and create speed up financial development. Having a powerful home cultivation sector achieves each of those.
Briefly, no cultivation, no trade and no practical path to the productiveness, expertise and proof beneficial properties a home sector can ship.
