Highlights

The Government is to launch 40 new Community Diagnostic Centres across England in an effort to bring medical testing closer to patients, reduce pressure on hospital departments and to tackle the large care backlog triggered by the pandemic. Millions of patients are to benefit from the decision to open the sites, says the Government. There will be around 2.8 million…

Please find a statement from BIVDA and ABHI regarding the laboratory validation of COVID antigen and molecular test here.

The 8th Annual Open Meeting of the UK Pharmacogenetics & Stratified Medicine Network will take place on October 20, 2021 at the Royal College of Physicians, London. The meeting will be held as a hybrid event, with speakers and delegates in person at the venue, as well as an additional audience of delegates viewing the talks online. Session One will be…

The House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee has released a report from its 'Global Health, Global Britain' inquiry. This is the fifth report from the sessions, the first of which was in October 2020. In the course of this inquiry, the Committee took oral evidence from 12 witnesses across four different continents and published 31 pieces of written evidence. It…

The trial of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is continuing in San Jose, California, and is receiving a lot of interest from the public and media. Ms Holmes is facing allegations of defrauding investors, and patients while CEO of the blood test start-up. She had been a rising star in Silicon Valley while promoting her invention of a machine that could…

We are delighted to announce that we have appointed a new Regulatory Affairs Manager who will be joining the secretariat on a full time basis from October 25 2021. Ashleigh Batchen joins us from MHRA where she is currently the Regulatory Affairs Manager, leading on market surveillance strategy and providing complex regulatory advice to stakeholders, including classification, economic operator requirements,…

There has been a reshuffle of the ministerial team within the Department of Health and Social Care, with new figures addressing key subjects on the health agenda such as diagnostics, innovation, vaccines and funding. Lord Kamall is to replace Lord Bethell as the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Innovation. His responsibilities will cover areas such as the COVID-19 response,…

In March, Doris-Ann participated in a round table for the Academy of Medical Sciences (AMS)on building on the pandemic to produce a sustainable UK Diagnostics sector. They have now published a report on this which you can download here. Doris-Ann’s role specifically  was to bring the industry viewpoint alongside speakers including Prof Dame Sue Hill & Prof Dame Anna Dominiczak.…

US President Joe Biden has signalled a slow-down towards a free trade agreement with UK as he met Boris Johnson for White House talks. Mr Biden has cautioned Mr Johnson over putting at risk stability in Northern Ireland through the implementation of Brexit. Mr Johnson has admitted that the trade deal is lower down on the list of priorities held…

Vulnerable hospital patients are to begin receiving a ‘ground-breaking’ drug from next week to fight coronavirus. The treatment is named Ronapreve, and will serve to aid patients unable to build up an antibody response against COVID-19. The MHRA gave approval for its use last month, and it uses a pair of laboratory-produced antibodies to attack the virus. The former US…