GSK and ViiV Healthcare

International Development Committee submission

Future of UK Aid and Development Assistance

13 November 2025

 

Introduction - GSK and ViiV Healthcare

 

Submission rationale- our public health impact through innovation, leadership and partnerships

 

 

1.       How should the Government be prioritising UK Official Development Assistance in the coming years?

 

  1. Leverage the UK’s development and diplomacy influence in global and regional fora as well as its own bilateral development finance institutions (DFIs) to facilitate and expand access to affordable, potentially pooled, long-term finance including for public health. DFIs (and multilateral health funds including Gavi and Global Fund) have the potential to design results/performance-based financing mechanisms which provide opportunities to better focus on sustainable health impact, outcomes and scale. Examples include outcome funds, social impact bonds and results-based financing agreements. Challenges to address with these approaches include ensure country debt levels are sustainable debt , simplifying complex contracting arrangements and incentivising interventions to ensure performance is not dominated with results which are easiest to achieve, leaving inadequately served people and difficult priorities behind.

 

  1. Recognise the value of convening, mobilising and coordinating the diverse private sector include global corporates, diasporas, the domestic private sector, in-country as well as international philanthropy, thro ugh the power to convene coalitions. The UK Government should be open to alternative ambitious approaches which could be constructively disruptive to secure development impact. For health, this provides better opportunities to understand national plans and priorities. The private sector can then determine where best to lead, enable or support through partnership. This could facilitate access to health products through the development of global and regional pooled procurement mechanisms or improve access to people-centred health care services through community-led and pharmacy-led care models.

 

  1. How can the UK’s approach to development be sufficiently flexible to respond to what its development partners need the most?
        1. Flexibility to focus on critical need requires alignment with national, regional and continental development plans and priorities. This includes averting the creation of parallel systems incl. for health are eliminated to avoid duplication, insufficient integration and other inefficiencies including a lack of donor coordination.
        2. Provide clarity and predictability across relevant UK-related policy areas to promote coherence for country partners and the private sector including across interconnected areas such as health a security, climate and the natural environment. This includes alignment across foreign affairs, science, innovation, technology, international development, and trade; where sharing goals, objectives and indicators can track success.

 

2.       How does the UK’s delivery approach for a) development and b) humanitarian assistance need to adapt to the changing funding and values landscape?

    1. Implementing fewer strategic priorities with a focus on where the UK has demonstrated strong leadership including global public health security, infectious and chronic disease prevention, action to eliminate antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as well as addressing climate change and protecting the natural environment.
    2. Recognise the potential development impact of affordable and context relevant technology including AI and digital innovation. Given the UK is the world’s third largest AI economy globally, public and private investment opportunities could drive economic and development opportunities in the UK and in target countries. AI has the potential to generate $1.2 trillion for Africa’s economy by 2030 which equates to 6% of the continent’s gross domestic product. The possibilities ushered in by AI to unlock opportunities across the continent in healthcare includes AI, decentralising diagnostics prevention, treatment and care including through telemedicine as well as improving efficiency in supply distribution. Yet, AI design and development need to prioritise homegrown innovation to enable people and communities to develop tools that reflect the realities they live. UK ODA could prioritise support to address challenges associated with core AI principles including transparency, fairness, privacy, accountability, inclusivity and safety.
      1. What should the future of Government engagement with UK based International NGOs be going forward?
  1. UK-based international NGOs (UK-iNGOs) will remain essential for public and donor advocacy, accountability and public engagement.
  2. Programmatic delivery should increasingly be led by those in-country whose proximity and expertise deliver development impact which offers better value for money.
  3. The UK should support strengthening the agency and viability of local civil society organisations to increase their autonomy by diversifying local sources of funding to design and deliver homegrown solutions.

 

3.       What needs to change to realise the goal of moving from paternalistic models and relationships to partnerships?

  1. Rethinking global development institutions, financing and cooperation are critical to transition to a meaningful partnership model where countries lead and own their development response including for health and the UK collaborates to identify areas of shared interest. The recently (August 2025) launched, Accra Reset led by President Mahama of Ghana and the African Union Champion for African Financial Institutions may offer an opportunity to support this transition.
  1. What needs to be considered as the Government plans to leverage UK expertise and move from “grants to expertise”?
  1. The UK Government’s convening power needs to bring together key sectors - which deliver multiplier effects, through for example innovation, impact, partnership and access - as it develops a responsible transition, beyond grants. This approach needs to be integrated into shared domestic priorities.

 

  1. What is the interest and capacity of UK organisations as varied as the NHS and private businesses in engaging, sharing of expertise?
    1. GSK and ViiV Healthcare have a wealth of expertise in biomedical innovation for public health. This has enabled us to improve health outcomes and impact globally
    2. Our expertise has delivered cutting-edge research, access partnerships and global health security contributions:
  1. through pioneering antiretrovirals and long-acting injectables (LAIs) to prevent and treat HIV; developing the world’s first malaria vaccine and single dose radical cure; and researching the promising M72/AS01 TB vaccine candidate. Since 2022 GSK has committed £1bn over 10 years to global health R&D, developing more than 25 potential new vaccines and medicines of which >30% are in clinical development.

 

    1. Our expertise is dedicated to deliver health impact at scale including:
        1. in HIV treatment, dolutegravir (DTG) our world-leading HIV drug (ARV) has transformed global HIV care.
        2. Of the 40 million people living with HIV globally, more than 23 million are on DTG-based medicines across >129 low-and-middle income countries. We have also enabled the fastest ever rollout of dispersible child-friendly HIV medicines, available in > 100 countries. 
        3. This has been accelerated by sharing our patents through voluntary licencing, with UK-supported Unitaid and the Medicines Patent Pool (global health agencies).
        4. By July 2025, in partnership with global health partners including UK-supported Global Fund, we delivered the first ever LAIs for HIV prevention into public health programmes reaching 18 countries, primarily in Africa.
        5. In parallel, since 2022, we have worked with the MPP to enable generic supply for LAIs for HIV prevention and its use in a long-acting HIV treatment regimen across 133 countries[1]

 

    1. Our expertise transforms health outcomes through the power of partnership
  1. Since 2010, GSK has supplied more than 1.2 billion vaccine doses to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. including close to 100 million doses in 2024 alone - reaching over 41 million children.
  2. 12 Gavi-supported countries will have introduced GSK’s malaria vaccine RTS,S/AS01 through national immunisation programmes, by the end of 2025.
  3. Since 2000, GSK has donated over 12 billion albendazole tablets working with the World Health Organisation (WHO) to eliminate neglected tropical diseases[2].

 

4.       Where is reform needed in multilateral agencies and development banks the UK is a member of, and funds?

The UK can play a critical role in leveraging its membership of multilateral agencies and development banks by advocating for reform to prioritise health in debt restructuring processes to redirect resources into primary healthcare and address cross-border health-risks through investing in systemic resilience. This could include funding regional cooperation and risk management including innovative R & D models for health particularly to address preventable and treatable disease and combat antimicrobial resistance.

 

a. What is the UK’s role in this reform?

The UK needs to provide an evidence-based voice and predictable investment for the most effective agencies in the UN and multilateral system. This includes support for responsible agency reform and, prioritise inclusive representation from key constituencies, promote efficiency in the use of increasingly limited donor resources and focus on outcomes and impacts for global development, health cooperation and security. 

 

5.       What is needed to achieve the Government’s objectives in terms of transforming its role to one of an investors, from that of a donor?

a.              The UK will need to deploy appropriate strategies, as well as invest in investor expertise which requires capabilities beyond HM Government.

b.              Leveraging the impact of key UK business sectors which drive economic success offers an important launchpad this including the UK’s eight industrial strategy sector plans which includes Life Sciences.

c.              Life Sciences contributes £37bn to UK gross domestic product creating nearly 600,000 UK jobs. Increasing the UK’s global share of biopharmaceutical exports by just four percent could generate a further £16.3bn to UK economic output and create an additional 85,000 jobs. Yet, to realise this potential requires the UK to firmly value and invest in biomedical innovation incl. research for the UK and to export.

d. Innovative medicines and vaccines also support delivery of NHS transformation and greater competitiveness for public sector investment.

e.              The FCDO is instrumental in maximising the UK’s growth potential, through promoting and enabling conditions for UK business growth. This includes leveraging the UK diplomatic, trade and development influence to unlock UK exports, promote enabling market conditions for growth through UK diplomatic missions This includes prioritising trade facilitation, intellectual property protections as well as timely market access.

 

Approved for Public Release4

 

[1] Through our voluntary licensing agreements, this includes all least-developed, low-income, lower middle-income and Sub-Saharan African countries, as well as countries where ViiV Healthcare does not have patent rights for cabotegravir.

[2] Including. lymphatic filariasis (LF) and treat soil-transmitted helminthiasis (STH).