Petition The NHS should manufacture its own medicines

The NHS is funded to ridiculous amounts by the British taxpayer, and as a result has some of the best-equipped laboratories in the world, staffed by some of the best medical professionals. British universities train hundreds of students each year in the arts of medical-science. So why not make use of them? If the NHS utilised these assets it could create its own medicines, thereby reducing the inflated prices paid to outside pharmaceutical companies. Whilst free to UK citizens, these drugs could then be sold to other healthcare systems in the global market - at full-price to developed countries such as the US, and at reduced costs to poorer, third-world countries. Eventally, NI contribution could be eliminated once the costs of developing earlier drugs have been recouped over the years and ploughed back into developing new medicines, in the same ways that private companies reinvest their profits to increase growth.