Experts fear patients could wait up to two years longer for new drugs after Brexit

The government’s medicines watchdog has warned that leaving the EU could jeopardise its ability to protect public health.

The annual accounts of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) outline several possible dangers.

One is that Brexit threatens to “impact on the ability of the agency to undertake its public health protection role”. Another is that the agency fails to fulfil its statutory duties because it loses funding.

According to the Commons Library, the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which will quit London after Brexit, outsources up to a third of its work to the MHRA and provides a third of its income.

Experts fear patients will have to wait up to two years longer for new drugs after Brexit, because drug companies would approach