ABPI Annual Conference 2023 – patients, partnerships, and politicians. Part One
Attending this year’s Association of British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) Conference in London on Thursday 27th April, it quickly became clear that the day would be a notable one – not just for its opportunity to spark meaningful and enlightening conversations between industry and healthcare professionals, but also for the informative discourse with Government it permitted, on the subject and role of the life sciences sector within the social and economic environment and plans of the United Kingdom overall.
The UK: A global centre for life sciences at a crossroads
The day opened with a welcome from Dr Richard Torbett, ABPI’s chief executive, who told how the UK can be grown as a leading global centre for life sciences, at a crossroads as it is: one way leads to economic growth, a thriving healthcare system, and better outcomes for patients, Torbett said, or the other leads to regions still missing out on investments, and inequalities perpetuated.
The UK has excellent universities, world-leading scientists and research, and for a very long time has been a trading nation with an international outlook – and that’s not forgetting the NHS. With the life sciences sector generating £36 billion for the UK economy with 480,000 jobs, Torbett asked what this shows: the potential and power of growth herein. One of the few sectors to have the potential to generate economic growth and investment in public services, it can add so much more with the right conditions put in place, he said.
Indeed, last year PwC projected huge additional GDP from R&D investment alone if the life sciences vision is fully delivered, including another 85,000 jobs if gotten right. Therefore, it seems clear that supporting life sciences will deliver more significant results more sustainably than any other sector (or many other sectors).
Noting, however, the decline in phase 3 studies between 2017 and 2021, Torbett stated that there have been a few positive steps in the last few months: MHRA funding, budget, collaboration with global regulators, bringing new medicines to patients more easily, R&D tax credits, a full expensing model of capital allowances – all positive steps, he said, adding that Lord O’Shaughnessy’s review was also eagerly anticipated.
All of us appreciate the huge need to make progress quickly; the need to be internationally competitive. Torbett mentioned the proposals in March for a new agreement with Government: a vision for a new voluntary scheme for pricing, access, and this time growth – VPAG. Additionally, a sustainable approach to medicines and maximisation of the potential of life sciences industry. All this requires a new mindset within the government, system partners, and those in the industry, and that, he said, requires the type of partnership and trust forged during the pandemic, as well as recognising that progress comes from the strengths and experiences of public and private sectors, and that industry can be a force for good.
Future health, wealth, and productivity of the nation
To follow was a recorded video message from the PM, Rishi Sunak, reminding those in attendance that during the pandemic, everyone turned to scientists and pharmaceutical companies. With over 6,500 life sciences companies in the UK employing over 280,000 people and contributing over £19 billion to GDP, if the nation is truly to be made a science and technology superpower, then we need to go further to increase speed and effectiveness, and safe and speedy delivery to patients, he said.
Working together to resolve the challenges, supporting NHS doctors and nurses to boost innovation, a VPAS deal to be struck for both NHS and patients, and the best conditions created for the industry to invest and grow in the UK – “Let’s get to work,” the PM urged.
R&D as an engine for growth
To follow was a panel moderated by Russell Abberley, GM UK & Ireland at Amgen Ltd., who was joined by Jill Richardson, executive director at MSD, Dr Jonathan Pearce, director of strategy and planning at the Medical Research Council, Simon Denegri OBE, executive director of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and Catherine Elliott, director of research and partnerships at Cancer Research UK.
Abberley began the conversation by mentioning that, just over a month ago, the chancellor restated the aims of his predecessors, the PM, and the life sciences sector – that the UK become a superpower, a Silicon Valley for R&D. Quipping on the poor acronym of VPAG, Abberley nonetheless noted its intended economic benefits.
Clinical trials are a critical component of intentions, however. The UK R&D ecosystem has been in a state of decline, and the nation slipped from being competitive in the global race. As a result, patients, and their families and friends, are missing out on therapies. Indeed, the UK had slipped to tenth place in 2021 in global ranking, having been fourth in 2017. With investment moved to other countries, alarm bells should be ringing, Abberley said, adding that a whole system reform is needed for R&D to become an engine for growth in this country. But what precisely needs to be done going forward?
Cancer Research UK’s Catherine Elliott responded first, beginning with the fact that cancer remains the leading cause of death in the UK: one in two of us will get it. That means that, at current growth rates, over half a million a year will be diagnosed with cancer. It is, therefore, a compelling problem, but – her example point – research has had a big impact: one in two people will now live for over ten years after a cancer diagnosis. Compare this with the 1970s, she said.
Additionally, Elliott noted, the HPV vaccination programme has shown that prevention and early protection and detection makes a huge difference: the prophylactic vaccine has seen a 90% reduction in the vaccinated group, building on decades of work. The theme for the day, then, should very much be the discovery engine behind these successes, she said. There is no doubt that research drives economic growth for the UK, but we need to drive it further, building on research excellence and the interfaces between the different ‘bodies’, clusters of excellence, and the sharing of NHS data and genomics, transferring across the ‘clusters’. Charities play a unique role, Elliott said, and the funding of cancer medicine centres needs to be thought about for a network of delivery across the UK.
The increasing use of AI and country-to-country comparison
MSD’s Jill Richardson considers the UK a leading force in terms of science and academic centres of excellence. Nevertheless, she noted that the environment for life sciences is punitive and challenges the ability to pitch for additional investment, and that there remains a need to translate discoveries into clinical endpoints.
The innovation pathway as a whole matters, Richardson said, and tangible evidence of a holistic approach to delivering on the life sciences vision is needed – including collaboration between regulatory bodies, HTAs, and the NHS so as to provide swift access to promising new innovation for all patients in the UK.
MRC’s Dr Jonathan Pearce added that partnering requires knowing where your partnering comes from. Over 15 years of developing cell and gene therapies, risks have been taken that venture capitalists weren’t prepared to take. Now, however, MRC is part of UK research innovation and there is a real opportunity to think about supporting current industries, as well as the industries of the future, including AI and data. It is, Pearce said, a question of scale, but also of inclusivity. The opportunities are clear: children cured with T-cell therapies and full cures permitted through gene therapies – but the challenge is taking the breakthroughs in small population groups and broadening them out to be applicable in wider populations, he said.
The key is to look over the horizon, to prevention, both secondary and primary, and decide how it can be monetised: a prevention economy, in short. After all, ill health was estimated as being a £45 billion problem last year.
International collaboration and flavours of innovation
The Academy of Medical Sciences’ Simon Denegri OBE noted that it is clear that the stresses and pressures on and within the healthcare ecosystem were in part pre-existent to the pandemic, but that they became amplified and accentuated, and now the fault lines require urgent action to address. Nevertheless, the key word is ‘ecosystem’: problems of that ecosystem have to be approached by looking at individual actions that can be taken in partnership within that system as a whole.
Denegri insisted that it is vital to keep the pressure eon Government at the highest levels to push for association with Horizon Europe. With negotiations in ‘a glimmery state’, it might not happen, and so a Plan B is necessary, to which end the AMS has been working to develop such, as published a few weeks previously. However, the main message, so to speak, is to have an association with Horizon Europe.
Looking forward to Lord O’Shaughnessy’s upcoming independent review, Denegri also mentioned Sir Andrew Pollard’s comments on the NHS’ struggles and the positivity around the discussion of Integrated Care Systems (ICSs). Nonetheless, he lamented that there is a lack of true belief in research being part of the NHS, and there is thus the remaining need to “address the soft underbelly of healthcare”, he said, which includes workforce issues.
People at the heart of health and wealth
Pearce joined that there is a risk the life sciences agenda is not embedded in government RNI strategy and that a collective voice is needed as we enter a new period of spending and any new government. Denegri agreed that there must be a coming together as a ‘shared voice’; one that understands the ecosystem as a whole. Elliott concurred and added that there mustn’t be a pressing on one bit of that ecosystem in isolation; rather, that common themes must be pursued, and NHS clinical research supported. Richardson summed it up as “future health collaborations”, while Abberley termed it an “end-to-end thing”, a “series of circles at the centre overlapping deeply” and a true opportunity existing there.
Elliott gave a name to that centre: people, the ‘research workforce’. A case for the health and wealth of a nation must be based on the impact on individual lives, she said. After all, it’s all about people, and people can create compelling economic cases for the role of the life sciences sector itself.
Words from Jonathan Reynolds MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Industrial Strategy
The morning sessions of the ABPI Annual Conference closed with a speech from a member of Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party team, who have really gone out of their way to support pharma in the last few years, as Torbett announced. Coming onto stage with the admission that the audience was ‘slightly intimidating’, Jonathan Reynolds MP also confirmed that what was being discussed and worked upon has the potential to transform not only healthcare, but the quality of life for millions of people.
Explaining how a future Labour Government could be the partner needed to achieve the full potential of UK life sciences, which is world-class as it is, Reynolds referenced Starmer’s laying out of the party’s Missions earlier this year – the foundation stones of a transformational Labour Government as hoped to be – and looked back at how the COVID vaccine came to be: as a result of years of research, and an ecosystem ripe for production. Indeed, when gotten right, incredible things can happen, Reynolds said. And things should be gotten right more often, including minimising instability.
What the party wants to see is the innovative capacity of every art of the UK strengthened, supporting spin-outs and start-ups in order to get products to market quicker. The NHS is in a worrying position, however, and it is clear that a trust-to-trust approach is not working.
Excited by the conversations being held during the day, Reynolds reiterated that the agenda is a shared one, with the end goal of transformational healthcare for millions of people. “Let’s keep working together,” he closed.
An assertive, equitable, and ambitious approach to the business environment
Questioned by Torbett afterwards on industrial strategy and prosperity through partnership, Reynolds was asked to give the audience more of a flavour of what he meant would be possible under a Labour Government. Replying that we are “trapped by memories of the 1970s”, Reynolds noted that it has to be about the framework: “It’s not that the Labour Government can do everything,” he said, “But [it has] to have a more assertive and ambitious approach to the business environment of this country.” At the end of the day, Reynolds said, “Labour politicians want good working lives and experiences”. Regional inequalities are not merely a matter of the North/South divide.
