Lord Patrick Vallance has emphasised plans for a close collaboration between the government and private sector, in line with the Labour Party’s plan to reestablish the country as a clinical research hub.
Speaking today (7 November) at the Financial Times (FT) Global Pharma and Biotech Summit in London, Vallance highlighted the government’s focus on innovation and investment in the clinical space. Central to Labour’s plan to realise these goals, Vallance said, are closer ties between the public and private sectors.
The Minister of State for Science told industry leaders, “My simple message is one of supporting innovation and partnership. Partnership across industry, academia, the third sector, and the NHS.”
Labour’s strategy, Vallance said, leverages the UK’s position as Europe’s startup capital, mentioning strong interest from investors expressed at the recent International Investors Summit on 14 October. Vallance stated the Regulatory Innovation Office, launched by the government on 8 October, will prove instrumental to ease innovators path through the MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency), encouraging investment in UK pharma and biotech.
Innovation within clinical trials in particular, Vallance noted, is seen as crucial to ensuring a stable NHS in the long term. Vallance set out the government’s priorities for innovation in clinical research as part of the Government Healthcare Goals Programme, stating that the government will focus on cancer, dementia, obesity, mental health, and addiction.
Vallance pointed to the government’s recent collaboration with Eli Lilly in Manchester, studying the glucagon-like peptide receptor agonist (GLP-1RA) tirzepatide, as an example of the closer ties Labour seeks with private industry. Tirzepatide, marketed by Eli Lilly as Mounjaro, is projected by GlobalData to generate over $32bn annually by 2030. The drug is also sold under the brand name Zepbound for treating obesity.
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The Minister said the government seeks to capitalise on the country’s existing strengths in the clinical space, notably its leading universities and their spin-off biotechs, as well as the abundant genomics data gathered from research by UK Biobank and Our Future Health.
His comments mirrored those of Lord James O’Shaughnessy, former Health Minister and author of the O’Shaughnessy Review of Commercial Clinical Trials in the United Kingdom, who highlighted the nation’s “position of strength” at the Future of UK Life Science Regulation 2024 conference on 6 November.
In a Q&A, Vallance discussed Labour policy in light of the BIOSECURE Act, passed by the US Congress on 9 September, which would restrict federal funding to biological research supported by Chinese firms. Vallance underscored the need to recognise China as a clinical leader while warning against overconfidence in unstable supply chains, and stated the government was in the process of issuing guidance on the security of manufacturing DNA and other nucleic acids, a focal issue of the BIOSECURE Act.
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