Professor Sir John Bell Sets Out Future Life Sciences Landscape in Industrial Strategy for Life Sciences Report
Industry-led proposals have been unveiled by Professor Sir John Bell to build the UK’s status as world leader in life sciences.
Life sciences was one of five sectors that the Government requested in January to come up with an industry-led vision for their futures. The strategy was independent of the Government, but it has encouraged the strategy and seems keen to support it.
What Does the Report Cover?
Sir John's review was into the UK's £64 billion life sciences industry. The review is intended to inform the basis of Government work with the sector towards a sector deal in the coming months. It comes at a crucial time with the Government looking for industry initiatives to cement the UK's place in the world in light of the changes through Brexit.
Sir John's launch was supported by Business Secretary Greg Clark and Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who announced details of £160 million of funding to support the sector.
The industry-led Life Sciences Industrial Strategy follows Sir John's comprehensive cross-sector review into the long-term future of the industry and brings together input and recommendations from a broad range of stakeholders, from global companies such as AZ, GSK, J&J and MSD through to healthcare groups, SMEs and charities.
Just a few days after the 30 August launch, Sir John presented his vision to the EMIG Quarterly Meeting on Monday 4 September. His presentation showed real vision and inspired the audience. In response to a question I asked, he acknowledged that the challenge, as always, is how to implement the results - particularly in light of the Innovation Health and Wealth report in 2011, which ended up gathering dust. He remains hopeful that this will be different, and he looks forward to working with the Government to deliver it.
Sir John said: "The vision for the Life Sciences Industrial Strategy is an ambitious one and sets out proposals for how the UK can continue to capitalise on its strengths in the sector, both to encourage economic growth and to improve health outcomes for patients.
"We have created a strategy which capitalises on our strong science base to further build the industry into a globally-unique and internationally competitive life sciences eco-system, supported by collaboration across industry, government, the NHS, academia, and research funders to deliver health and wealth."
Key Provisions
The Life Sciences Industrial Strategy has five key themes - science, growth, NHS, data, and skills - with proposals to build on the UK’s strengths in each area. These include:
- Science – Reinforcing the UK science offer by sustaining and increasing funding for basic science to match our international competition and by further improving UK clinical trial capabilities.
- Growth – Improving growth and infrastructure across the country, through a tax environment that supports growth and by attracting substantial investment to manufacture and export high value life science products of the future.
- NHS – Encouraging NHS collaboration by recommending the Accelerated Access Review be adopted with national routes to market streamlined and clarified, including for digital products.
- Data – Making better use of data and other evidence by establishing two to five regional innovation hubs that would provide data across regions of three to five million people.
- Skills – Ensuring the UK has the talent and skills to underpin future life sciences success by delivering a reinforced skills action plan across the NHS, commercial and third sectors.
An interesting development is the Strategy's recommendation of the establishment of the Healthcare Advanced Research Program (HARP), a programme through which industries, charities and the NHS can collaborate on ambitious and long-term UK-based projects to transform healthcare and take advantage of the medical trends of the next 20 years.
Government Support
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt supported the launch by saying: "The UK has always been at the forefront of scientific excellence. From the discovery of antibiotics to our world-leading 100,000 Genomes project, we have a proud history of medical breakthrough and innovation. I want patients to continue to be at the front of the queue for the best treatments available, whether that means early access to trials, giving staff brand new innovations and technology to work with, or being at the heart of research to share best practice quickly across the health and social care system. A strong and growing life sciences sector ensures this, particularly as we negotiate our exit from the EU."
Business Secretary Greg Clark said: "The life sciences sector is of critical importance to the UK economy and UK health – with over 5,000 companies, nearly 235,000 employees and a turnover of £64 billion in 2016 – and the government is committed to continuing to help this sector go from strength to strength. The Life Sciences Industrial Strategy demonstrates the world-class expertise the UK already has in this sector and represents the industry’s vision for how we can build on our world-leading reputation in this field. We will be engaging with Sir John Bell in the coming months in an effort to work towards a sector deal that helps us seize the opportunities in this area."
EMIG Meeting Insight from Sir John Bell
At the EMIG meeting, Sir John Bell said the paper did not just have the support of the Health and Business Secretaries, but also Number 10 and the Treasury. Although this is not their own vision, they acknowledge that the paper needs to be listened to as it has come from industry and shows what the industry wants.
Sir John said the industry worked together well in coming together for the strategy - across pharma, medtech, digital health, biotech and diagnostics. He was impressed with how these different diverse parts of the industry had a lot of mutual respect and played for each other in a common, joined-up vision.
Sir John talked about how the UK is very big in the R&D part of the industry, as well as in manufacturing. By adding resource and channelling into new and growing areas, the UK can grow significantly. Life sciences is the biggest UK sector in R&D.
Things have not always been rosy everywhere. The sector in the UK has had its challenges in the last 10 years. The NHS is still a very hard place to operate. The UK has never scaled a company to a mid-size one, and this can be contrasted with the US's successes. The UK has also lost some manufacturing sites, such as Pfizer's one in Sandwich. Things are therefore not perfect.
However, there are some unique opportunities in the UK. The cluster in the Golden Triangle between Oxford, Cambridge and London is the third biggest in the world, with some of the world's leading academic institutions there. There are also other hubs in other parts of the country, where there are opportunities for growth - such as South Wales, the North East and Scotland. The UK's R&D industry in the sector is unrivalled. It is three times as productive as Germany and twice as much as in the US. This R&D attraction can be a crucial attraction to move people to the UK or back to the UK.
The Government has expressed commitment to grow R&D spend from 1.4% to 2.6% of GDP and to put the UK in the top quartile of percentage GDP spend on R&D.
The creation of HARP was also an exciting opportunity. Sir John saw this as a game-changer if this is enacted and would see the biggest projects be carried out in the UK. Some of the world's best innovations had come from high risk and high bets with great upsides, but there had not been the incentive for people to do this in the UK previously. Up until now, more of the successes had come by accident, such as gene editing or the development of anti-bodies. He saw HARP as being able to take the lead on the global stage for projects such as artificial intelligence, genomics and the early detection of diseases. In particular, the future of healthcare provision would depend on early detection of diseases such as cancer and cognitive diseases. HARP would need several hundred million pounds to fund.
Another issue to consider was how to build small companies into big ones. The Treasury had put out a paper for increasing patient capital. Sir John talked about the pensions industry to invest small amounts of several trillions into high risk projects. This is just what the US had done in the tech sector in the 1970s to great success.
The UK had gone from a high tax to low tax corporate economy - with 10% corporate tax rates for patented products once patent box had been factored in. The tax environment was extremely competitive and attractive in the UK for R&D.
The NHS is also a great opportunity, despite its many problems. Nowhere else boasts this one-stop shop and opportunity for data collection from cradle to grave. There is a section in the report on access and adoption. There was also a desire to implement the Accelerated Access Review, which had been published a year ago. Now it was time to implement it. There was also a drive to increase digital - what more can data do to generate real world data at scale? There will be data hubs. This was an exciting prospect, where the NHS could play a big part.
For skills, this is also aligned to the digital agenda - informatics and the analytical agenda. There are two key things here - the industry need for unimpeded access to good skilled people after Brexit and to align the regulatory regimes between the UK and the EU. Not to have a good deal on that would be a major impediment for the life sciences industry. Sir John was confident that the Government recognised the importance of that. The European pharma industry wants this too, and the EMA needs to work with the MHRA.
Sir John concluded that the UK was not a great place to sell to - just 3% of the global pharma market, with a single payer that is strapped for cash; however, the UK was the best place in the world for R&D and had opportunities for future development projects such as Artificial Intelligence.
Comment
The report is encouraging and sets out a long term vision with a clear strategy for the sector in the UK through the Brexit process and beyond. Sir John has a great understanding of the life sciences industry, as well as a vision of the opportunities ahead, in addition to where the UK can lead. The challenge will be whether the funding and support will be there to implement this vision from the top of Government and others, or will it go the way of other reports previously?