{"id":88108,"date":"2025-05-09T19:08:14","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T19:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/88108\/"},"modified":"2025-05-09T19:08:14","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T19:08:14","slug":"how-chinas-stranglehold-on-antibiotics-could-imperil-the-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/88108\/","title":{"rendered":"How China’s stranglehold on antibiotics could imperil the UK"},"content":{"rendered":"

From its control of minerals that are critical to tech manufacturers<\/a>, to its near monopoly on essential components for energy generation<\/a>, China has potential strangleholds over vital supply chains that keep Britain functioning<\/a>. <\/p>\n

But there is one industry where the UK\u2019s huge reliance on the totalitarian state raises lethal concerns, which experts fear has been overlooked: medicines. <\/p>\n

About 80 per cent of the key chemicals used to make the entire world\u2019s supply of drugs are produced in China, according to industry sources. <\/p>\n

It is these compounds that are turned into active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) which fight disease or numb pain \u2013 and most of that processing is done in China too. Even when tablets and syrups are formulated here or in Europe, they depend on powders and liquids sourced from the Communist state. <\/p>\n

Most antibiotics originate from China. It is also the source of many key treatments for potentially deadly conditions including sepsis, diabetes and high blood pressure. <\/p>\n

British security analysts are growing increasingly alarmed about President Xi Jinping\u2019s ability to weaponise this reliance, by cutting off supplies should the worst happen \u2013 if Washington and Beijing\u2019s trade war<\/a> spirals out of control, or if China invades Taiwan and Western nations try to support the island. <\/p>\n

The former deputy head of MI6, Nigel Inkster, admitted last month that China\u2019s power to effectively enforce a medical blockade was a major concern. <\/p>\n

\u201cChina is a critical supplier of many pharmaceutical products \u2013 without them, we\u2019d be in trouble<\/a>,\u201d he told the BBC. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen China\u2019s readiness to exercise this kind of economic coercion before.\u201d <\/p>\n

This potential threat is very real, medical experts warned recently. The UK is \u201cperilously vulnerable<\/a>\u201d to disruptions in shipments of antibiotics, vaccines and painkillers, according to an in-depth report<\/a> by the Centre for Long-Term Resilience, a London-based think tank.<\/p>\n

\"ChineseChinese factories, such as this one in Sichuan Province, now dominate global pharamceutical production (Photo: Pan Jianyong\/VCG)<\/p>\n

Why the risk is real and how worst could happen\u00a0<\/p>\n

The UK is becoming \u201csuper-reliant\u201d on China for drugs, says Dr Paul-Enguerrand Fady, biosecurity policy manager at the centre.<\/p>\n

He is alarmed that the relationship between the two countries has been \u201cincreasingly oppositional and even veering towards hostile on specific issues\u201d in recent years. <\/p>\n

If China ever banned drug exports, it would be a \u201ccatastrophe\u201d with \u201cgrave consequences,\u201d Fady tells The i Paper. \u201cMany countries would see it effectively as an act of war\u201d.<\/p>\n

Shortages would not appear overnight, he says. \u201cThere would still be some buffer stocks. The healthcare system doesn\u2019t operate on a just-in-time basis as much as other industries do, so pharmacies aren\u2019t going to suddenly become depleted.\u201d <\/p>\n

However, it would immediately create an international race to secure drugs from manufacturers outside China, leading to \u201ca spike in prices as demand far outstrips supply.\u201d <\/p>\n

It would also cause \u201ca lot of chaos and confusion\u201d within the UK Government, because there is no centralised system to monitor healthcare supply chains, Fady explains. \u201cWe don\u2019t know what we have, where it is, what its expiry date is, what form it takes, and when we\u2019re next expecting a shipment of it, where that shipment is or where it\u2019s coming from.\u201d <\/p>\n

And if such a crisis lasted for months, eventually stocks would run out. People could die.<\/p>\n

Cutting off healthcare supplies would be an \u201cunprecedented\u201d act in modern history, but China has already started weaponising trade. <\/p>\n

In 2023, it banned any exports to the US of technology to extract and separate critical minerals, which are vital for defence and tech firms. Last month it placed restrictions on the sales of seven rare earth elements<\/a> to any foreign nations, in response to Donald Trump\u2019s tariffs. <\/p>\n

Concerns about APIs being exploited in this way have been growing in the US since the pandemic. After Donald Trump blocked people from travelling from China to the US, to prevent the spread of coronavirus, Beijing\u2019s state media threatened to ban medical exports and make Americans \u201cfall into the hell<\/a>\u201d of an epidemic. <\/p>\n

A cross-party group of American senators warned last year that more than a quarter of essential drugs in the US, including medications for cancer and heart disease, rely on key ingredients from China or unknown sources \u2013 placing supplies at \u201cvery high risk<\/a>\u201d of disruption.<\/p>\n

\"AboutAbout 80 per cent of the world\u2019s medicines are thought to depend on Chinese chemicals or active ingredients (Photo: Yuan Chen\/VCG)<\/p>\n

The danger to the UK\u00a0<\/p>\n

Awareness has been growing more slowly in the UK. But a report by the Civitas think tank in 2022 warned of China\u2019s \u201cpotential \u2018chokehold\u2019 risks through control of supplies<\/a>\u201d. Fears of Britain being sucked into the US-China trade war have increased the sense of urgency. <\/p>\n

It was fortunate that worldwide Covid-19 lockdowns did not hamper the UK\u2019s medication supplies more severely, especially as the pandemic originated in China. <\/p>\n

However, Dr Darren Mann<\/a> \u2013 a surgeon who served as medical director for the national PPE Taskforce during the pandemic \u2013 vividly remembers the sense of panic among officials trying to source personal protective equipment for the NHS and other key workers. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a complete collapse of PPE supply at the time when demand was highest,\u201d Mann tells The i Paper. <\/p>\n

Now, he warns: \u201cImagine if that were penicillin.\u201d <\/p>\n

Indeed, just a single pencillin factory is left in the West<\/a>, outside the small Austrian town of Kundl.<\/p>\n

\"DrDr Darren Mann led efforts to source PPE during the pandemic, when supplies from China were disrupted (Photos: Getty\/Achilles)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to accept that we\u2019re entering a very dangerous period of world history,\u201d says Mann, so the chances of China imposing export restrictions during a dispute can\u2019t be dismissed. \u201cThe impact would be huge, and the likelihood of it happening is now many times higher than it was.\u201d <\/p>\n

The \u201castonishing\u201d complexity of what goes into a single pill makes it easy to miss weak spots in the system, says Mann, who is now a senior adviser at the supply-chain risk management firm Achilles. \u201cIt\u2019s a bit from here, a bit from there, another ingredient from here, then it goes back to the first place, then it comes here to be mixed.\u201d <\/p>\n

Mann praises civil servants who have been working hard to map NHS supply chains since the pandemic. The problem, he says, is that \u201cgovernments don\u2019t import, companies do\u201d. <\/p>\n

He accuses the private sector of \u201cwilful\u201d denial over geopolitical risks, driven by profits \u2013 because API manufacturing costs are 35 to 40 per cent lower in China<\/a> compared to the US, for example. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re overlooking that critical import suppliers might actually be from a potential adversary,\u201d he argues. \u201cPeople have chosen not to look, because traditional procurement practices around value and cost have taken us to parts of the world that we now may find ourselves in hostilities with.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"EuropeEurope needs lots of new API factories, like this one being built in Denmark by Novo Nordisk (Photo: Sergei Gapon\/AFP)<\/p>\n

Calls for Government help\u00a0<\/p>\n

Leading figures in the pharmaceutical industry blame successive prime ministers for not doing protecting and building up sovereign production capacity. <\/p>\n

Mark Samuels, chief executive of the trade association Medicines UK<\/a>, agrees that the UK would be in trouble \u201cif we were in a hybrid conflict or worse\u201d with China, and needs to prioritise healthcare supplies strategically such as defence. <\/p>\n

He says that although ministers have financially incentivised the discovery and development of exciting new drugs by high-tech labs, companies have moved production abroad for older medicines which are less profitable but still essential \u2013 typically to China. <\/p>\n

Previous governments \u201chave entirely focused on the new medicines of tomorrow, and failed to consider the everyday prescription medicines that the NHS relies on,\u201d Samuels argues. \u201cThese are life-saving drugs for conditions like diabetes, heart disease, cancer\u201d.<\/p>\n

A GSK factory making the antibiotic Zinnat in Ulverston, Cumbria, is due to close next month<\/a> after a contract expired, with jobs also being lost<\/a> at Barnard Castle in County Durham. <\/p>\n

Although a quarter of the UK\u2019s generic medicines are still manufactured in Britain, he explains that firms are still \u201creliant on China\u201d for the core ingredients. <\/p>\n

He believes a lack of support for this sector is already having an impact on the public. Various supply problems abroad have led to British shortages of some medicines for diabetes, epilepsy and other conditions<\/a>. The UK has banned the export of 41 drugs<\/a> because they are needed by patients here.<\/p>\n

\"GSK'sGSK\u2019s antibiotics factory in Ulverston, Cumbria, will be closing next month (Photo: GSK)<\/p>\n

What can be done?\u00a0<\/p>\n

The UK\u2019s problems wouldn\u2019t be so severe if its allies made APIs, but most factories have also disappeared from the EU and the US. <\/p>\n

Just this week, Europe\u2019s last maker of ingredients for a variety of important antibiotics \u2013 used to treat infections such as sepsis \u2013 has announced it will be closing its largest factory and shifting production to China<\/a>. The Danish company Xellia Pharmaceuticals said this was the only way to see off Chinese competition. <\/p>\n

Mann says this trend has to be reversed. He admits it will take years if not decades, but he calls on the UK to collaborate with European partners to either \u201conshore or friendshore\u201d medicine production. <\/p>\n

To combat a reliance on China, the EU has announced a Critical Medicines Act<\/a>, which calls on member governments to consider more than just price when awarding drug contracts.<\/p>\n

Before the UK\u2019s general election last summer, the Health and Social Care Select Committee called for ministers to commission an independent review of the medicines supply chain within six months<\/a>. The Labour Government said in January that it would keep this idea \u201cunder consideration,\u201d but has not gone ahead. <\/p>\n

The committee\u2019s chair, Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran, tells The i Paper: \u201cIt is very worrying to think that we depend heavily on another country for any of our essential supplies, and all the more so when we are talking about vital pharmaceutical ingredients for medicines. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis situation puts us at risk of the loss of our essential supplies, in the case of geopolitical events which we may have no control over. The Government must show awareness of these risks by adequately reflecting them in the risk register.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Centre for Long-Term Resilience has also recommended the creation of a stockpiling taskforce, and for drug companies to be legally obliged to reveal where their APIs are sourced from. <\/p>\n

A Government spokesperson responded: \u201cWe\u2019re strengthening the resilience of our medicine supply by offering up to \u00a3520m to incentivise the manufacturing of more medicines and diagnostics \u2013 and have well-established processes in place to mitigate risks, including using alternative medicines when available. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are also actively engaging with partner countries to bolster supply chains \u2013 protecting NHS services, patient care and our economic security.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Chinese Embassy in London was approached for comment. <\/p>\n

@robhastings.bsky.social<\/strong><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From its control of minerals that are critical to tech manufacturers, to its near monopoly on essential components…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4316],"tags":[1395,42013,105,4348,3912,5489,811,1201,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-88108","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-china","9":"tag-china-uk-relations","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare","12":"tag-medicine","13":"tag-pharmaceuticals","14":"tag-security","15":"tag-trade","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114479451703217997","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}