CEO Update | Monday 15 October 2018

We’re at the beginning of a  key week for the BIA as voting closes for our Board elections, and Thursday sees our flagship conference, the UK Bioscience Forum, along with our AGM and Autumn reception.

BIA Members have until 5pm tomorrow to vote in the BIA board election.  As a not-for-profit, member-led association, it’s key for me that members make their voice heard and it’s fantastic to see so many excellent individuals putting themselves forward for what is a voluntary position. Do please find out more about the 11 candidates here. You can vote online here. Your vote must reach the BIA by 5.00 pm tomorrow 16 October 2018. Please remember that only one Ballot Paper may be completed by each member organisation, and that only fully paid up Corporate, Associate and Network members are entitled to vote.

The UK Bioscience Forum is this Thursday, click for the great agenda and do come along if you can. It is a busy day, with panels on advanced therapies, engineering biology, practical workshops for SMEs, innovative funding strategies and the latest on Brexit. The day will kick off with keynote Sir Mark Walport updating on UKRI and the support they will be providing to the life sciences sector in future. There will of course be plenty of time for networking activity through the day and into the evening with our AGM and autumn reception. Keep up with the activity on the day using our twitter hashtag, #UKBSF.

In brexit news, on Friday Government published a further batch of “no deal” technical notices.  This included a notice on the continuation of existing EU free trade agreements if there’s no Brexit deal. Government has long stated that its intention was to “grandfather” all of EU’s FTAs with 3^rd countries.  However, the notice makes clear that this has not yet occurred and states that in the event of no deal, the UK will seek to replicate the effects of existing EU agreements with other countries as far as possible and activate these agreements from exit day where possible.  It states that currently “should arrangements to maintain particular preferences in a no deal scenario not be in place on exit day, trade would then take place on a ‘Most-Favoured Nation’ (MFN) basis, which is sometimes referred to as ‘World Trade Organization (WTO) Terms’, until such a new arrangement has been implemented. Under WTO rules, the principle of MFN treatment means that the same rate of duty, on the same good, must be charged to all WTO members equally”.  If there is a deal, then Government will seek to have the discussions during the implementation period.  A full list of all the technical notices is available here. You can catch up on Brexit news in our webinar on 26 October, register here to attend. You can find out more about the next Brexit Lead Network (5 November), a collaboration between the BIA and ABPI, here. On Friday MHRA issued guidance for those engaged in clinical trials regarding continuity of supply of Investigational Medicinal Products (IMPs) in the event of a no-deal Brexit. You can read more here.

A few pieces of interesting member news this week: “Centaur chemist” is a new job description to me so it was great to see so many BIA members involved in revolutionising and making more efficient the way drug discovery works featured in this morning’s Telegraph. There is no better example of how UK biotech is leading the world than BIA Member Sosei Heptares. They have built and commercialised the ability to maintain the complex 3D structure and activity of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) which traditionally lose their highly organised structure and activity when taken out of the cell membrane. This step can now enable them, with partners, to build an exciting pipeline of new medicines with potential to transform the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, cancer, migraine, metabolic disease, and other indications.  I was delighted to be able to join Malcolm Weir and the entire team as they formally opened their new R+D centre at the Steinmetz Building in Granta Park on Friday. 

The BIA have also today published our latest quarterly report, taking a look back on all of the events and successes of the last 3 months. You can take a look here.

I would like to congratulate Dr Eliot Forster who was announced as the new CEO of BIA member F-star, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company pioneering the development of novel bispecific antibodies that target the immune system to fight cancer. Eliot brings more than 25 years of extensive leadership experience in clinical-stage biopharmaceutical companies. Most recently, he served as CEO of Immunocore where he successfully steered the company’s strategy in immuno-oncology (IO), raising a $320M Series A and establishing clinical collaborations with global pharmaceutical companies including AstraZeneca, GSK and Roche.

Ahead of the BIA’s delegation to Shanghai next month, it was great to see that China has approved 17 drugs for medical insurance coverage, one of which, Tagrisso, is produced by BIA member AstraZeneca. The approval comes as part of a measure to make cancer treatment more affordable as the number of patients diagnosed with cancer rates continue to soar. The drugs will remain eligible for coverage until 2020. The cancer survival rate in China is 30%, half that of the US, and the approval of these drugs aims to increase this by 15 percentage points by 2030. It shows the global potential market for biotech therapeutics  continuing to grow. 

We’re also looking forward to hosting our 15^th annual bioProcess UK conference next month. We will gather together at Edinburgh Castle for an evening of drinks and catching-up on 20 November, followed by a two-day agenda touching on the latest news, updates and developments within the manufacturing and biologics arena. We’ll hit the ground running after Christmas with our Gala dinner on Thursday January 24^th ,  tables are going fast and you can book here.

The BIA will be working with the Medicines Discovery Catapult on a follow up to the State of the Discovery Nation report that launched in January of this year, to update on medicines productivity in the UK. The Catapult has put a survey together and it would be great if BIA corporate members could fill in the survey to help shape the findings of this report which we expect to launch early in 2019.

Work continues to build the UK Digital Innovation Hubs, recommended in the Life Sciences Industrial Strategy. This work is being led by Health Data Research UK (HDR UK), which last week launched a £3m competition for “Sprint exemplar innovation projects”. The purpose of these projects is to establish “confidence in concept” of the Hubs’ technology solutions and proof of readiness for industry innovation use cases. Full details on how to apply are available here. It’s a small part of the £37.5 million funding that will establish between three to five hubs in regions across the UK to connect health-related data for research and innovation, within a single interoperable and secure governance framework. This will enable researchers to safely use NHS data to create new innovative technologies. The long-term ambition is to build towards full UK population coverage. BIA will continue to engage with HDR UK as the Hubs are developed.

Finally, I am delighted to announce that Jon Kudlick has joined the BIA as Director for Business Development and Membership Services. Jon will be providing cover for Jane Wall who will go on maternity leave at the end of the month. Jon has significant experience of heading up membership and communications with a range of organisations – most recently as Director of Membership & Communications at BritishAmerican Business, and before that as Director of Membership, Marketing & Communications at the Royal Society of Biology for 9 years. Our Director of External Affairs, Pamela Learmonth will also be going on maternity leave at Christmas. We are currently recruiting a maternity cover for her role, full details of which can be found here.

I look forward to seeing many of you at the #UKBSF this week