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(REUTERS) --- The government said on Monday it would promote use of new medicines and use a 180 million pounds fund to bring modern technologies to market under a package of reforms designed to attract investment from big pharmaceuticals companies.
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Prime Minister David Cameron also outlined plans to open up a potential treasure trove of anonymized medical data collected by the National Health Service (NHS) for use by private firms.
The measures is a shot in the arm for Britain's 50-billion pound turnover life sciences industry, which has faced a range of high-profile cutbacks in the past two years.
"The most crucial, fundamental thing we're doing is opening up the NHS to new ideas," Cameron told pharmaceutical industry executives in London.
"The end-game is for the NHS to be working hand-in-glove with industry as the fastest adopter of new ideas in the world, acting as a huge magnet to pull new innovations through, right along the food chain -- from the labs to the boardrooms to the hospital bed."
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Drug companies have been complaining for years that Britain was often slow to adopt new medicines and use them in the NHS.
Cameron's plan was welcomed by Britain's largest drugmaker, GlaxoSmithKline, which said it was an important next step "on the journey to make the UK the best place in the world to locate pharmaceutical investment."
Part of the support outlined by Cameron, dubbed the Biomedical Catalyst fund, will be open to universities and small and medium-sized enterprises.
An early-access scheme will also be set up, under which seriously-ill patients could use new drugs up to a year before they are fully licensed.
"It can take 20 years from the discovery of a drug to getting it to market," Cameron said. "This is hurting everyone -- industry, taxpayers, above all patients. The worst of it is, this is so unnecessary."
DATA SHARING
Another part of the plans will allow more patient records and other NHS data to be shared with life sciences companies, a move some critics fear may compromise confidentiality.
But Cameron said the data would remain completely anonymous and he argued that giving researchers from private sector companies access to NHS information would make it easier for them to develop and test new drugs and treatments.
The government intends to change the NHS constitution so that the default is for patients' data to be used for research, unless they opt out.
