CEO Update | Monday 26 November

With a Brexit deal signed between the EU and the UK at the weekend, we’ll be distributing our Brexit briefing on what it means for our sector to members tomorrow. We’ll follow that with our monthly Brexit webinar this Friday where myself and Laura Collister will put the deal in its political context, analyse the next stage of parliamentary ratification and endeavour to answer your questions. 

My initial take is that for our sector the UK crashing out of the EU with no deal must be avoided –because a cliff-edge Brexit will negatively impact patients, public health and the life sciences sector.  The UK and EU reaching a deal significantly improves the chance of stability and increased certainty for business.  The UK’s life sciences industry has already endured considerable disruption, duplication and uncertainty, and it’s likely this will continue to be the case for the months ahead. Although the withdrawal agreement will help to protect medicines supply to patients, members still have major concerns about how medicines regulation will work in practice during the transition. The political declaration addresses many of the priorities that BIA (in coalition with other across Europe) has advocated for, so we can reflect the success of our advocacy here. 

The declaration includes ongoing science and innovation collaboration, cooperation for medicines regulation, a focus on future trade and customs and borders, a future relationship with the European Investment Bank, conformity assessment – and is therefore is a key step in the right direction. Going forward it’s already clear that there is a long way to go from a political declaration on a future relationship to a legally binding, effective and workable future framework. When future relationship discussions start, it is vital patients are prioritised, and the BIA is committed to working on the detail that will matter to member companies in practice.  And crucially, despite Brexit uncertainty, the UK biotech sector continues to deliver world-leading life science which continues to attract finance and talent from around the globe. 

We are still digesting the detail on the PPRS announcement announced between the UK government and the ABPI last week.   It is good to see the needs of smaller companies being represented with the establishment of the small company taper which will better enable our members to provide innovative drugs and treatments to patients. The Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing and Access will begin in January as the present PPRS comes to an end, and will the see the annual increase in bills for medicines paid by the NHS capped at 2%. This will mean a cash payment of more than £1b in 2019 for any spending above that limit – money which can be put straight back into the NHS. The best-value drugs will be fast-tracked through the scheme so that patients can access them earlier, and all-in-all the deal is positive news for patients, the NHS and industry alike. A detailed briefing is available on request.

On Wednesday, we relaunched the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Life Sciences with our colleagues at BIVDA and ABPI. The APPG is a cross-party group for MPs and Peers with an interest in the sector and is chaired by Daniel Zeichner MP (Lab) and vice-chaired by Chris Green MP (Con). The APPG will work to raise awareness and understanding in Parliament of the valuable contribution the life sciences sector provides to the health and wealth of the nation. At the relaunch, we focused on the implications of genome editing with speakers from Spanish biotech SME ZeClinics, BIA member and law firm Fieldfisher and the Nuffield Council on Bioethics (timely given the news emerging from China today). A write up of the event is available on our blog and you can follow the APPG on Twitter. Thanks to all the speakers and parliamentarians for a fantastic event – we look forward to hosting more key events in Parliament next year. 

This week, we will take another step forward in the implementation of the Digital Innovation Hubs, which are a key aspect of the Life Sciences Industrial Strategy. The aim of the Hubs is to enable the secure use of NHS data for innovative life sciences companies in for example clinical trials. Health Data Research UK (HDRUK) is leading on this and organising the first of several workshops for industry to provide input into how the Hubs should be designed. Several BIA members are attending and we look forward to seeing you there.  

The advanced therapies apprenticeships community have launched a new website – you can take a look here. The UK are leading the way on advanced therapies, but attracting talented scientists with the right skills is proving more and more challenging. Responding to the recommendations of the Advanced Therapies Manufacturing Taskforce, Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult (CGT Catapult) has been awarded £1.5 million by the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund to establish the Advanced Therapies Apprenticeship Community (ATAC). This initiative will help to produce top scientists and retain their skills in the most innovative research and development into advanced therapies. 

Last week we held our 15th Annual bioProcessUK conference in Edinburgh, where the manufacturing and bioprocessing communities caught up and discussed the challenges of producing advanced therapies, and the strides being made in the production of new and innovative medicines. Sadly I couldn’t attend the conference as I was attending the Life Sciences council, but the conference was a roaring success as always, and plans are already underway for putting together next year’s conference. 

In closing I hope that investors in BIA member BTG, whose Board recommended a £2.2billion takeover by Boston Scientific last week, will share the upside opportunity there is in UK life science companies broadly and look to reinvest in the next generation of growing and scaling UK life science businesses. 
    

Best,

Steve