CEO Update | 14 February 2022
BIA responds to consultation on the Innovative Medicines Fund
Last week the BIA submitted its response to NHS England & Improvement (NHSE&I) and NICE consultation on proposals for the Innovative Medicines Fund (IMF). The IMF aims to improve patient access to promising new innovative medicines while additional data is collected to resolve clinical uncertainty. We believe that the IMF could be particularly beneficial for the growing pipeline of innovative medicines for rare and ultra-rare diseases and want to ensure that the fund is accessible to these medicines. However, we are concerned that the proposals as they stand would fail to resolve the challenges faced by rare disease medicines associated with resolving uncertainty and demonstrating plausible cost-effectiveness. In our response, we call for several changes to the proposals, including for the IMF to be used to test and pilot innovative mechanisms for reimbursement for treatments where significant uncertainty exists.
R&D tax relief
As many of you are aware, the Government is considering ending R&D tax relief for activity outsourced overseas. We’ve been very clear with the Treasury that this would be a highly damaging and unfair move, due to the necessity of much life sciences R&D to be conducted outside the UK. Our Finance and Tax Advisory Committee (FTAC) has met officials twice to explain this and we believe they generally accept our argument. To support these conversations, we submitted written evidence last week as part of the Treasury’s consultation on the proposals, including many helpful case studies provided by our members. We will be holding further discussions with Treasury officials and are confident that we can find a solution to protect necessary overseas R&D.
Getting on the road to meet UK biotech
The BIA continues to run a whole host of events covering different aspects of work going on in the UK life sciences sector. In March, we will be hitting the road and heading to Alderley Park and Oxford. I’m also looking forward to meeting the next generation of aspiring entrepreneurs in our sector at our annual PULSE event which is run in partnership with the Francis Crick Institute. For those of you involved in BIA Advisory Committees please note that registration is open for the BIA’s annual Committee Summit which is taking place virtually on 24 February.
Dr Martin Turner, our Head of Policy and Public Affairs, joined a panel at the iiCON Infection Innovation Consortium last Friday in Liverpool. Martin discussed funding and investment routes for UK infection innovation with a panel of experts from Innovate UK, the London Stock Exchange and Mercia.
Steve Bates OBE
CEO, BioIndustry Association
