According to a report filed by TimesOnline, at least 600 of the new jobs will be in the biopharmaceutical sector with the remaining 400 elsewhere in the company. The company did not give a timescale for the new jobs.

“As a direct result of the commitment from the government to create a patent box, we will build our next major greenfield manufacturing center, biopharmaceutical factory, here in Britain,” GSK’s chief executive officer, Andrew Witty reportedly said. Witty said that most of the jobs would be high-paid, high-skilled ones and that for every direct job created, three or four more will be created indirectly, according to Dow Jones.

Last month, GSK confirmed that it will invest £500 million following a government decision to slash corporation tax for patent-derived income.

Patent box

The 2009 Budget announced that the UK Government would consider changes to the way the tax system encourages innovative activity and the relative attractiveness to global firms as they make decisions on where to locate their research and development and other innovation activities. This was followed by the 2009 Pre-Budget Report (PBR) announcement that the Government would introduce a reduced 10 per cent rate of corporation tax for income which “stems from patents in the UK” (a so called “Patent Box”).

The ‘patent box’ will work by applying a reduced rate of Corporation Tax of 10% to income from patents from April 2013.

The aim of the tax cut is to encourage more businesses operating in the fields of intellectual property and innovation to make the UK their base and to stop those already here from moving all or part of their businesses overseas because of the tax regime.

Addressing the Global Investment Conference in London, Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, said: “We have a good tax regime in this country and we intend to keep it that way.”

“For GSK, assuming the new regime will apply to patents currently under development it will have the immediate impact of making the UK a priority area for future investments, particularly in manufacturing,” Witty said late last year.

The introduction of the ‘patent box’ will also benefit small businesses who supply services and facilities to sectors specialising in research and development. For example, GSK works with more than 20,000 suppliers in the UK.

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