ONE of the first tangible consequences of Britain’s exit from the European Union will be made clear on November 20th, when the EU announces the new home of its drug regulator, the European Medicines Agency, which is currently based in London. The agency will have less than 17 months to pack its bags before Britain leaves the EU in March 2019, whereas by its own reckoning it needs a transition period of at least two to three years.

The agency’s relocation is not the only worry facing one of Britain’s most important and most globalised industries. Pharmaceutical firms on both sides of the English Channel warn that time is running out for the EU and Britain to reach an agreement that allows them to continue operating without a hitch after 2019. Companies would need several years to adjust if such a deal were not made. Even agreement on a transition period, to smooth the first years after Brexit, may come too late to be of use to an industry with long production timelines. Firms are thus already preparing for an outcome in which Britain operates outside the EU’s medicines regulations. Some in the industry say they are arriving at an “accidental no-deal”.

Britain has some reasons to be optimistic about the future of its science industry. The pharma business depends more than most on research and development (see chart), which in turn depends on centres of academic excellence such as Cambridge, Oxford and London, which are not going anywhere for now. Britain still ranks ahead of other European countries for the amount of biotech venture-capital investment that it receives. Yet its contribution to manufacturing supply chains could dwindle. The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, a trade group, says that if progress on post-Brexit arrangements is not made by December, an increasing number of pharma firms will activate costly “no deal” contingency plans to avert problems in the supply of medicines. AstraZeneca, an Anglo-Swedish company, and Eisai, a Japanese one, have already started to duplicate their testing and approval procedures elsewhere in Europe, in order to ensure access to the EU market after 2019. Eisai says the work is costing many millions of pounds—money that it notes will offer “no gain” to patients. Pascal Soriot, the boss of AstraZeneca, says his company has an entire team working on Brexit contingency plans. Another large European pharmaceutical business with facilities in Britain says it is “on the cusp” of making a decision to move activities out of the country. GlaxoSmithKline, Britain’s largest pharma firm, will start spending on contingency plans from the end of the year. Some companies based outside Britain are looking at ways to avoid passing their products through the country, in order to sidestep the costs and delays they might encounter should Britain leave the EU’s single market and customs union. Many drugs sold in continental Europe are primarily made in Ireland and then sent through Britain, where they are packed, tested, given marketing authorisation and released. Tommy Fanning, head of biopharmaceuticals at IDA Ireland, which promotes foreign investment in the country, believes that this British “bridge” to Europe could collapse if no deal is struck.

Continental Europe, too, has cause for concern. On November 9th the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations, a trade group, issued a warning to Brexit negotiators. Just under half the group’s member firms expect delays in the trade of medicines if Britain and the EU fall back to trading according to the rules of the World Trade Organisation. Over 2,600 medicines are at least partly manufactured in Britain, which supplies 45m packs of medicine to other EU countries every month, while 37m come in the other direction. Any Brexit settlement which disrupted these flows would be a bad prescription for patients on both sides of the channel.