Budget 2020: British Patient Capital Response

11 March 2020: At today’s Budget, the Chancellor announced that the Government would be providing a further £400m to back businesses that are scaling-up. Within this allocation, £200m has been made available specifically to make equity investments in health and life sciences. This is expected to attract a further £400m of additional private investment, with the new fund being launched within the next year.

Keith Morgan, CEO, British Business Bank said: “We welcome this new funding, which will support the large-scale venture growth funds our country needs to build our successful life sciences industry further. Financing the growth of innovative, fast-growing businesses in the sector will enable the UK to continue to be a world-leading innovator in health and life sciences.” The remaining £200m is being provided to enable the UK’s high growth businesses to take full advantage of new opportunities now that the UK has left the EU.

Keith Morgan said: “This continuation of the support provided in April 2019Link opens in a new window will be deployed through our venture capital and growth finance funding partners, including equity and debt funds, during 2020/21 to ensure that innovative British firms can access more of the finance they need to grow.”