Quarter in numbers - Influencing and shaping our sector – BIA update April – July 2018

The BIA is involved in continuous engagement to enable our members’ voices to be heard at the highest levels. Our most recent Influencing and Shaping Our Sector report gives an overview of some of the key policy and regulation work we have undertaken between April and July. This includes engagement with policymakers and wider stakeholders, ensuring members are briefed on the the latest Brexit updates, and submitting consultation responses on issues that impact on our members

 

Key numbers from Q2 at a glance:

 

Our engagement with the government takes many forms and meetings or roundtable discussions are a core way we highlight the needs of the sector.

This quarter, we held our annual Parliament Day, where we brought BIA members into Westminster to meet with MPs and Peers. In May, BIA CEO Steve Bates attended the inaugural Life Sciences Council at No 10 together with BIA board member and Benevolent AI CEO Jackie Hunter. This new group is co-chaired by the Health Secretary (with Matt Hancock replacing Jeremy Hunt at future meetings following the Cabinet reshuffle) and Business Secretary Greg Clark. This is a partnership between government and industry to provide strategic oversight of the future of UK Life Sciences, including the delivery of the sector deals.

We also work with government through the UK-EU Relationship Steering Group on Brexit-related issues. The group met twice this quarter and will meet again this month.  In addition to this there is of course plenty of engagement with government departments, including the Department for International Trade (DIT) and the Office for Life Sciences (OLS) on what post-Brexit trade will look like. For example, the BIA and its members attended a workshop at the DIT to discuss the continuation of the existing Mutual Recognition Agreements (MRAs) that the EU has with third countries, as well as a workshop on key Intellectual Property (IP) considerations in a possible trade agreement with the US.

 

The BIA continues to be the voice of the bioscience sector by actively submitting responses to key government consultations. This quarter, we have responded to:

 

• Enterprise Innovation Scheme knowledge-intensive fund consultation 
• HMT and HMRC consultation on Entrepreneur’s Relief 
• HMRC Intangible Fixed Assets consultation 
• Labour’s Animal Welfare Plan
• Health Select Committee’s inquiry on AMR BEIS Business Productivity Review  
• IPO call for views on the SPC manufacturing waiver 

 

Another key method of engagement with government for the BIA is letters to ministers. We submitted three letters this quarter, including letters to the International Trade Secretary Liam Fox and to the then Brexit Secretary David Davis.

We will keep up our engagement with the government and MPs as the political environment continues to change. You can download our full Influencing and shaping our sector from the BIA website to see what’s happening across our 9 core policy areas:

 

• Leaving the EU
• Finance, tax and investment
• Access to medicines
• Skills, people and talent
• Pre-clinical and clinical research
• Medicines regulation
• IP and tech transfer
• Manufacturing
• Strategic Technologies