CEO Update - 6 January 2025

2025 kicks off at JPM

The global life science investment and media community are heading to the JPM Healthcare Conference next week and we’ll be keeping an eye on that impact our industry. Before Christmas, we delivered a webinar that focused on how UK folk can get the best out of their time there, as well as at other key business development moments in 2025. The UK reception at JPM conference, hosted by BIA with the UK government is on Monday 13 January at the Marines Memorial Club in San Francisco, from 6-8pm PST, we hope to see you there.

Steve Bates OBE
CEO, BIA

Remember, it’s only 4 weeks to the BIA Gala Dinner. If you want to attend, the last few individual tickets are available. 

UK clinical trial capacity highlights 

One of the UK’s standout strengths highlighted at JPM is our ability to deliver a wide range of complex clinical trial work. A recent milestone underscoring this was the first patient dosed in the Moderna/MSD cancer vaccine trial in Dundee just before Christmas. And clinical trial research is part of what makes the U.K. feel good about itself - as shown by its inclusion in this roundup by the BBC. The NIHR’s recent post further highlights the breadth of medical research undertaken in the UK, underscoring the nation’s exceptional ability to harness clinical research for transformative outcomes.

The year ahead 

As we look ahead to the year, the new President Trump administration in Washington signals a shift in established norms, bringing both challenges and opportunities for our sector. Insight from members will be crucial in navigating this new era, and I look forward to hosting BIO leadership in the UK in 2025.

The appointment of Peter Mandelson as UK ambassador to Washington ensures a politically astute advocate with a vested interest in the success of UK life sciences.

Meanwhile, the UK government, with its focus on regulatory reform, economic growth, and industrial strategy, offers a more stable agenda, providing opportunities to align these priorities with our members' needs.

Westminster has returned 

The UK political establishment has returned from the festive break with health as a central focus.

In a speech earlier today, Prime Minister Keir Starmer lauded the opportunities for AI in helping deliver the shift to community disease detection and prevention – saying “I’ve seen it in action at the hospital I was at the tail end of last year. AI-enhanced stethoscopes that can tell, literally in a heartbeat whether you’re at risk of cardiac failure.” This is the TRICORDER programme, deploying AI-enabled smart stethoscopes to 100 primary care practices to assist clinicians in their evaluation of heart failure by researchers at Imperial College London, funded by a £1.2M Award from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).

The scheme is a case study of the benefits to a scaling venture-backed TechBio company of partnering with the NHS to develop its core product in practice. The technology was CE marked in 2016 and an NHS study three years ago highlighted the potential for inexpensive, non-invasive, workflow-adapted, point-of-care screening, for earlier diagnosis and prognostically beneficial treatment.  Eko Health happens to be Californian-based, but the government's industrial strategy now provides the potential to maximise the impact of these productive partnerships on start-ups and scale-ups with UK heritage, investment or significant footprint, if we are to deliver wealth as well as health from the investment and reform of the NHS.

Meet the CRDC Leadership

CRDCs are public-private partnerships that support industry clinical trials across the UK. These trials can help improve patient outcomes, generate revenue for the NHS, and bring innovative treatments to patients. The ABPI and CRDC are hosting an in-person event on Thursday, 27 February (10:30–3:30) in central London. This is a key opportunity for the pharmaceutical industry to connect with the 20 CRDC leaders, hear their plans, and help shape their delivery priorities from the outset.

We encourage interested members to send a representative. Register here by Wednesday, 15 January.  

New Year Honours

It was fantastic news to see Dr Kate Barclay receive an MBE in the New Year’s Honours list to reflect her contribution to education and skills. Many Congratulations Kate.

Kate is the Skills Strategy Consultant here at BIA, leading our skills and talent programme development using over 30 years of experience within large pharma and small company networks. Working with BIA, she represents the sector ensuring access to incredible talent and addressing skills gaps to start, grow and scale innovative life sciences and biotech organisations.

Kate is the driving force behind our Women in Biotech mentoring scheme and has developed multiple apprenticeship standards across STEM industries.

It was also great to see many of our collaborators recognised for the work they’ve done including Professor Sir Leszek Krzysztof Borysiewicz the former Chair of CRUK being knighted. Ijeoma Uchegbu, CSO at Nanomerics received a DBE while Louis Taylor, CEO, British Business Bank and Catherine Lewis La Torre, formally CEO of British Patient Capital became CBEs. Miles Celic, CEO, TheCityUK got an OBE while Harry Destecroix, Founder, Science Creates got an MBE.

Congratulations all.