This Tuesday, BIVDA hosted the final APPG for Life Sciences of 2022 with ABPI and BIA in the House of Lords. We were fortunate enough to have Roz Campion, Head of the OLS, attend the meeting to discuss “Implementing the Life Sciences Vision: one year on”.
Over a working breakfast, Roz candidly discussed where the Life Sciences Vision was succeeding and areas where improvement was required. From a BIVDA perspective, it was pleasing to hear Roz praise the progression of genomics over the past year and reiterate the importance of early diagnosis for health outcomes.
Lord Bethell noted that both the USA and China had recently released ambitious life science strategies themselves, with the latter requiring particularly close attention in an increasingly competitive, global world. He also emphasised that while the UK remains an international life science juggernaut, this is not guaranteed forever and therefore we must never become complacent.
The Shadow Minister for Science, Research & Digital Chi Onwurah MP stressed the importance of access to finance for the UK life science industry, which can often be a laboured process. Moreover, she emphasised how the life science sector was key to UK economic growth and has the potential to significantly boost areas all across the country, not just the South-East.
Lord Patel expressed major concern at the clinical trial crisis in the UK, stating that for a country of our size and economic output we lag behind many of our close neighbours to the detriment of NHS patients. As ever, Daniel Zeichner MP chaired the meeting and the APPG secretariat look forward to working with him to create further useful events in 2023.
