The External Affairs Working Party enjoyed a productive, fully virtual March meeting as Dr John Tyson, Head of the Innovation Lab at the Integrated COVID Hub North East and Stevan Cirkovic, Senior Policy Lead (MedTech Regulation) at DHSC joined us for two excellent presentations.
It was a particular delight to welcome Dr Tyson to the event as the Innovation Lab have become members of BIVDA just this week – welcome to the club!
Attendees were given a comprehensive insight from Dr Tyson about the work of the Innovation Lab during the pandemic, including the hugely valuable work of compiling a large biobank for research and development and supporting the increased precision of COVID testing. Dr Tyson was keen to express his willingness to collaborate with other BIVDA members to aid diagnostic development. if you are interested, please view their website here and make contact with their team.
Stevan Cirkovic provided attendees with an important update regarding proposed mandatory reporting of industry payments legislation. As members may know, this aims to mirror the USA’s Sunshine Act and improve transparency. It must be emphasised that this policy is merely at the draft stage and a public consultation will run in the next few months. BIVDA will provide further updates as the draft policy evolves.
It has been an extremely busy month for BIVDA and Doris-Ann updated attendees about what the secretariat has been up to. Most of the team – those untouched by COVID – made it to Birmingham for the IBMS Congress which gave a great opportunity to engage with stakeholders and catch-up with members in person. Other notable events included the APPG for Life Sciences, attended by Michael, Doris-Ann and Ben in Parliament on Tuesday, with Doris-Ann also heading to the House of Lords in the same week for a reception hosted by the APPG for Medical Research.
Thank you again to all those who attended and to our fantastic speakers. Please sign up here for our next External Affairs Working Party at 9:30 on Friday 15th April.
