If the UK votes to leave in the upcoming EU referendum, it could cause irreparable damage to the UK pharmaceutical industry, according to specialist pharmaceutical and life sciences recruitment consultancy NonStop Recruitment.

NonStop Recruitment’s analysis found that the UK leaving the EU would mean the sector would still have to follow regulations to sell in the single market, but that it would have no say over what these regulations were. It would also mean the UK would lose out on the greater patent protection and support for research that it currently gains from being a member state, as well as the expertise of thousands of highly skilled professionals.

“From our analysis and the many others that have been released it’s clear that the pharmaceutical and life sciences fields would be directly impacted in the case of a Brexit,” Matt Beedle, Team Leader within NonStop Pharma, said. “In this instance there’s a high chance that the EMA (European Medicines Agency) would relocate and therefore many of the pharma companies headquartered in the UK could leave – potentially to Ireland. This is because one of the major reasons many pharma firms have their headquarters in the UK is due to the proximity of the London-based EMA.

 “In addition we’d still need to trade in the single market, however we would no longer have any say in what regulations we would be following, which would obviously damage our competitiveness and would likely weaken our position significantly,” Beedle said. “The sector would also struggle to keep hold of the thousands of European professionals who currently provide expertise to firms on these shores.”