Pharmaceutical industry in the United Kingdom

[7] The UK is home to GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca, respectively the world's fifth- and sixth-largest pharmaceutical companies measured by 2009 market share.

Foreign companies with a major presence in the UK pharmaceutical industry include Pfizer, Novartis,[9] Hoffmann–La Roche and Eisai.

In 1847, Flockhart supplied chloroform to Dr (later Sir) James Young Simpson for his anaesthesia experiment and it started to be used in obstetrics.

[13] Henry Wellcome and Silas Burroughs formed a partnership in September 1880, and established an office in Snow Hill in Central London.

[14] In 1883 Burroughs Wellcome & Co. opened their first factory, at Bell Lane Wharf in Wandsworth, utilising compressed medicine tablet-making machinery acquired from Wyeth of the United States.

[16] To satisfy regulations then in place in the UK on the importation of medicines, Pfizer established a compounding operation in Folkestone, Kent in Autumn 1952.

[16] In June 1993 Imperial Chemical Industries demerged its pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals businesses, forming Zeneca Group plc.

[22] Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham announced their intention to merge in January 2000, with the merger completing in December of that year, forming GlaxoSmithKline plc.

[28] In June 2009 Eisai opened a major new research and development and manufacturing facility in Hatfield, constructed at a cost of over £100 million.

[38][39] In 2007 the UK had the third-highest share of global pharmaceutical Research and development (R&D) expenditure of any nation, with 9% of the total, behind the United States (49%) and Japan (15%).