What are Brexit contingency plans for pharmaceutical industry?

AstraZeneca and other companies have frozen all manufacturing investments. Britain’s second-biggest drugmaker decided to halt further investments at its Macclesfield site in the summer of 2017. Its chairman, Leif Johansson, has said the UK needs to make sure it “does not become an isolated island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean”. David Jefferys, a senior executive at the European arm of the Japanese company Eisai, which makes treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy and breast cancer, told the Guardian: “Nobody likes uncertainty. We are not making any new investments in the UK until there is clarity.” Other major drugmakers, such as Novartis and the Viagra maker Pfizer, have announced plans to close UK manufacturing or packaging sites by 2020. Both decisions were made after the June 2016 referendum but the companies said they were not linked to Brexit.