CEO Update|Tuesday 26 May
AstraZeneca receives $1.2bn to scale-up and deliver Oxford’s COVID-19 vaccine, antibody testing gains momentum as a deal is struck between Roche and the NHS and details start to emerge on the future of the UK’s relationship with the EU.
Promising developments in the fight against COVID-19
This month BIA member AstraZeneca became the UK’s biggest company (in market capitalisation terms) and last week announced a $1.2bn deal with the US Biological Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), to supply at least 400m doses of Oxford’s COVID-19 vaccine with first deliveries in September this year. AstraZeneca has been working with the Government’s vaccine taskforce led by Kate Bingham, a project the BIA is heavily engaged with.
On Friday it was announced that UK scientists are to begin a clinical trial of a promising treatment, using T-cells to counter the effects of COVID-19 in seriously ill patients.
Last week’s webinar on how the UK’s therapeutic taskforce is leveraging the clinical trials infrastructure of the UK to rapidly trial COVID-19 therapeutics, vaccines, and novel diagnostics was really useful. UK clinical leaders shared their insights into the different clinical trials taking place to find a safe and effective treatment. This week's government/industry webinar is taking place on Friday morning and will focus on the COVID-19 Test and Trace Programme, register here.
Test, track, trace
There is intense focus on the development of an effective test, track, and trace programme as state schools in England are set to partly re-open in June.
The news that Roche’s antibody test will be widely available to the NHS was extremely welcome. Details on when the NHS app will be up and running however remain unclear, although we have been assured that we will have a “world-beating” contact tracing system in place from the beginning of June.
Business support
Applications for business support via the British Business Bank’s Future Fund are now open. The fund provides convertible loans of between £125,000 and £5m to businesses if they can also secure matched funding from third-party investors. On the first day of applications opening the scheme was over-subscribed by more than 100%. But it’s important that companies express interest if we are to make the case to the Treasury that this is a necessary and effective mechanism that needs continued supply.
The Future Fund is complemented by ‘continuity’ grants and loans provided by Innovate UK to companies with live projects at risk of being disrupted or cancelled due to COVID-19. I am very pleased to see these support measures rolled out; however, the support is only for Innovate UK’s currently funded projects. We need to see action for the rest of the community as well, including the rapid relaunch of successful established schemes like the Biomedical Catalyst, which are proven mechanisms to boost innovation and economic growth.
Clinical trials restart
Last Thursday the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) published a ‘Framework for restart’, a guidance document to help sponsors planning to restart clinical trials or to initiate new clinical trials which have been paused or delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as to support local decision-making. The framework will improve the health and wealth of the nation, given the impact that paused studies have had for patient participants, BIA members and the sector.
The BIA responded to the NIHR consultation on the proposed Restart Framework at the beginning of May and continued discussions with the DHSC and NIHR during the development of the framework to restore a fully active portfolio of research supported by NIHR. The Framework will be updated in the light of experience in implementation and the evolving COVID-19 situation.
The BIA has been invited to join the NIHR Restart Advisory Group established to provide advice, support and guidance to the NIHR Senior Responsible Officer (SRO), Dr William van’t Hoff, who leads the coordinated delivery of the NIHR Restart Programme, reporting to DHSC. For members feedback on the process and issues, please contact Dr Christiane Abouzeid ([email protected]).
Latest on Brexit
The publication of the Government’s legal text of the draft UK-EU free trade agreement was a key moment. Although this is by no means agreed, it was heartening to see that the Government has listened to industry and is seeking vital technical measures in Annex 5D, to enable the pharmaceutical and biotech industries to have reduced friction in trade compared to the situation if the UK exited the EU with no deal whatsoever. Getting agreement on issues like mutual recognition, batch testing, information sharing and co-operation in clinical trials would benefit patients in both the EU and UK. This is particularly important as continued scientific, industrial, regulatory, and political co-operation will be needed as we all work together, to develop vaccines and therapeutics to tackle COVID-19 and maintain medicine supply at this challenging time.
Also published last week, a paper which sets out the UK’s approach to the Northern Ireland Protocol. Sadly, the UK’s approach to the supply of medicines in the Northern Ireland Protocol is completely missing. This is disappointing as industry needs to know what the legal framework will be to continue to dispense medicines to the NHS in Northern Ireland in seven months’ time. We must receive more detailed guidance as soon as possible to give patients certainty that their treatments will continue to be supplied.
Finally, I’d like to congratulate PetMedix for securing investment from Cambridge Innovation Capital to advance their antibody technology platform after recently moving to the Babraham Research Campus. An impressive achievement under difficult circumstances.
