Labour ‘to tie research funding to generic versions of medicines’

Pharmaceutical companies will have to make their drugs “affordable to all” to secure public funding under a Labour government, Jeremy Corbyn has announced.

The Labour leader said the party would create a new system “to serve public health—not private wealth”, by using compulsory licensing to secure generic versions of patented medicines.

“We’ll tell the drugs companies that if they want public research funding then they’ll have to make their drugs affordable for all,” he told members at the Labour Party Conference on 24 September.