News from the UK over the past week offers both hope and a cautionary tale for the Irish pharmaceuticals sector.

Drug giant MSD pulled the plug last week on a £1 billion (€1.15 billion) investment in a London research centre that was already under construction and had been expected to employ 800 people.

It also walked away from another London facility where it currently employs 125 scientists.

The US giant said the move “reflects the challenges of the UK not making meaningful progress towards addressing the lack of investment in the life science industry and the overall undervaluation of innovative medicines and vaccines by successive UK governments”.

Two days later, Anglo-Swedish group AstraZeneca said it was putting on hold plans for a £200 million investment in a new laboratory in Cambridge. Having abandoned a separate £450 million investment in its Liverpool vaccine site earlier this year, the company is not now proceeding with any of a £650 million expansion of its UK business announced with much fanfare last year.

And Eli Lilly said it was putting on hold a planned London Gateway Lab, part of a £279 million investment “as we are awaiting more clarity around the UK life sciences environment”.

French pharma group Sanofi also announced it was suspending investments in the UK amid what it says is an unfriendly business environment for pharma innovation.

Tellingly, there have been no such announcements yet in Ireland, although MSD is moving some production of its blockbuster cancer drug Keytruda from Dublin to the US.

But neither have there been any promises of further investment here against the background of pressure from the Trump administration on Big Pharma to increase US investment in manufacturing capacity.

[ Ireland will be relieved at Trump’s tariff cap on vital pharma sectorOpens in new window ]

Pharma companies have been lining up to reassure the US president of their commitment to the world’s most profitable medicines market.

AstraZeneca ($50 million), Eli Lilly ($27 million), Roche ($50 million) and Johnson & Johnson ($55 million) are just some of those who have been looking to work their way into Donald Trump’s good books.

As the president touched down in the UK this week, British drugmaker GSK pledged to invest $30 billion in the US over the next five years.

Given the importance of pharmaceuticals to the Irish economy, the UK pullback shows just how quickly the mood can change.

The lack of similar announcements here can be attributed to the success with which Ireland Inc and its trailblazers in IDA Ireland have carefully trod a very fine line with the pharma companies and the US administration.

But continuing concern in the sector about access for Irish patients to their drugs shows just how delicate that balance is, not least as the industry and the HSE prepare to sit down to try to hammer out a new agreement on medicines pricing and access.