CEO Update: Monday 19 February

This week we are gearing up for our 2018 Committee Summit taking place on Thursday, kindly hosted by Simmons and Simmons. The event will see around 180 expert BIA members gather for all eight of the BIA’s advisory committees coming together. In addition, this year we are running a plenary session on the implications of the Nagoya protocol for our sector.

Today we are publishing a new guide to the Patent Box, which is a key part of the UK’s competitive tax regime and something that all bioscience companies should consider using. Thank you to the BIA’s Finance and Tax Advisory Committee for producing this useful guide for the membership. It’ll be officially launched at the Committee Summit on Thursday. 

On Friday we’ll be holding our monthly Brexit briefing webinar. I’ll be giving an update on government policy, progress of working groups, and how these potentially affect companies in life sciences. Do register on our website and visit our YouTube channel to catch up on previous months’ webinars. Also this week, as a result of a BIA ask, EY, who are running a survey of companies on supplying the UK market post Brexit on behalf of the Department of Health are holding an explainer webinar on their survey and what they are looking for – its on Wednesday afternoon and you can register here. The link to the survey – which has the deadline of Friday is here. This is an important information gathering exercise for the Department and I encourage anyone presently supplying the UK market to engage.  

Staying with Brexit, Dr Sarah Wollaston, the chair of the House of Commons health committee, wrote to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt last week stressing that immediate clarity is needed to protect patient care and the supply of medicines. In her letter, Wollaston called on the government and the European Commission to issue a joint statement setting out how both sides will protect patient safety in a no-deal scenario. Many of BIA’s longstanding arguments are also reflected in the letter, including the urgent need for a transition period and close alignment with the EMA, which shows the impact of our Brexit work and continued engagement.

In other news, if you are a patient-based organisation the EMA would like to hear from you. They are looking for input from patients and consumer experts to provide them with current, personal experiences of living with a disease or being on medication. I’d urge you all to share their sign up page around with your relevant networks. 

In member news, it was fantastic to see Oxford BioMedica enter into yet another major collaboration and license agreement for the use of their lentiviral vector in gene therapy, potentially worth around $100m. This agreement with Bioverativ is the second deal of this size and scale that the Oxford BioMedica has secured in under a year, with the company also signing a similar deal with Novartis back in July. The international demand for their world leading scientific capability is a huge testament to the strength of the company and indeed the UK in this game-changing field.

And finally, on 28 April several BIA staff will be taking part in the gruelling ‘Tough Mudder Half’, a 5-mile obstacle race, to raise money for Parkinson’s UK, the BIA’s Charity of the Year for 2018. It’s not going to be an easy challenge and it’s a fantastic cause so please show your support by donating via the team’s Just Giving page to help them reach their fundraising goal.

Best,

Steve.