CEO Update: Monday 20 November

This is a big week for the sector and we expect the new location of the EMA to be announced later on today. We will keep members updated on all the news in our next Brexit webinar tomorrow – you can register for the webinar here. Losing the EMA is a bitter pill to swallow for the UK but it’s vital that the agency can continue to function wherever it is moved to. The focus must be on ensuring that there is a smooth transition to allow for this to happen so that we do not see a detrimental impact on the supply of medicines to patients in the UK and EU.

The decision on the new location is likely to draw increased focus on the sector and to help members to prepare in the build up to Brexit, the BIA is holding a series of seminars for BIA members. The first two are on regulation on November 24^th followed by people on December 13^th. The regulation seminar this Friday will aim to inform, guide and facilitate discussion around medicines regulation and preparation for Brexit, and relocation of the EMA.  Legal and regulatory experts will join BIA and member biotechnology companies to provide insight and informed discussion around the key issues facing innovative life science organisations.

I’ll be catching up with colleagues in Europe this week at the EuropaBio National Associations Council meeting, which will be an excellent opportunity to gauge how Brexit talks are progressing from a European point of view and to see how associations in other EU countries are preparing for upcoming changes and the EMA move.

Later this week, the Chancellor will deliver the Autumn budget and we will be keeping a close eye on announcements that are likely to impact on the life sciences. This is a crucial moment to see if recommendations from the Patient Capital Review are being put into place and we will be paying close attention for announcements around EU funding, spending announcements, enabling UK pension funds to support our sector, venture capital schemes and national investment funds.

There was a great piece of financing news at the beginning of last week, as the Dementia Discovery Fund received a $50 million investment from Bill Gates. The investment is Gates’ first to accelerate progress toward disease modifying therapies for Alzheimer’s disease and is an excellent result for the fund.

There have been a number of recent announcements for key figures in the sector. It has been announced that Dr Ruth McKernan will be stepping down as the CEO at Innovate UK. During her three years in post, Ruth has led Innovate UK through an extensive programme of work transforming the organisation and positioning it for a successful transition to UK Research and Innovation on 1 April 2018. I’d like to personally thank Ruth for all of her hard work and wish her all of the best for the future. Dr Patrick Vallance, president of research and development at the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, has been appointed as the Government’s chief scientific advisor. It will be great to have someone with Patrick’s extensive industry experience in such an important role for the UK life sciences sector and I look forward to continuing the BIA’s relationship with Patrick in the future.

Last week I counted over 12 biotech sector events happening in London, which makes it hard for individuals to attend everything they may have wanted to, and, I hear, makes for inefficient networking. I enjoyed the Consilium Healthcare conference and members of the BIA team popped in to the Biobeat event at the Crick and the Jefferies 2017 London Healthcare Conference. It’s great to see the vibrancy of the UK sector being showcased across so many events in a week, but I am sometimes frustrated that market forces don’t seem to be delivering the efficiencies of scale I think would benefit our time poor sector.  I’d welcome any feedback you have as an attendee or sponsor of events last week. 

The BIA team are making final preparations for this year’s bioProcessUK conference taking place in Cardiff that brings together the medicines manufacturing community to discuss hot topics for the sector and provides a great opportunity to catch up with old contacts and build new relationships – you can still register for your place here and I look forward to seeing many of you there.

Best, Steve