Former finance minister Wouter Bos is to head the campaign to move the European Medicines Agency (EMA) from London to Amsterdam when Britain leaves the EU in 2019.

The Netherlands is stepping up its bid to capture the EMA, which with its 900 staff is one of the jewels in the Brexit crown. EU leaders are due to select the agency’s new location in November.

The former Labour party (PvdA) leader, who is currently chairman of the board at the VU teaching hospital in Amsterdam, will travel to Brussels on Tuesday to formally launch the bid together with health minister Edith Schippers and Amsterdam’s acting mayor Kasja Ollongren.

More than 20 cities around Europe have declared their candidacy to be the new home of the agency, which approves medicines for use across the EU’s 27 member states. The new location will need to be approved unanimously by EU leaders.