Ex-NHS chief negotiator joins Newmarket Strategy

Two years after co-founding healthcare and life sciences consultancy Newmarket Strategy, former UK Health Minister Lord James O’Shaughnessy has recruited Blake Dark, previously the NHS’s chief negotiator with the pharma industry, to join the firm.

Dark – who has also served as interim chief commercial officer for NHS England, as well as working in the drug industry for many years – has been brought on board at Newmarket as a senior partner with the aim of bolstering the consultancy’s expertise on innovation and commercial strategy.

His appointment comes shortly after Lord O’Shaughnessy was appointed to conduct an independent review into the UK commercial clinical trials sector, which saw a 41% decline in new trial initiations between 2017 and 2021, according to pharma industry figures.

Dark was at the sharp end of dealmaking between the NHS and pharma, leading several negotiations for new drugs, including novel products that have posed adoption challenges for healthcare systems and payers - such as three-gene therapies, new cancer drugs, and personalised medicines.

He is also credited with delivering first-of-a-kind procurement deals for NHS patients for hepatitis C therapies, as well as a 2020 agreement with Novartis to speed up access to its twice-yearly cholesterol-lowering drug Leqvio (inclisiran) via a “population-level” agreement - billed by Novartis as a “world-first” - which was accompanied by the creation of a consortium with academic groups to try to improve the manufacturing of oligonucleotide drugs like inclisiran in the UK.

Other projects he was instrumental in setting up include the pioneering subscription model for antibiotics to fight antimicrobial resistance (AMR), and an agreement with GRAIL to launch a large-scale pilot within the NHS of its Galleri blood test for early detection of cancers.

Former government special adviser Ed Jones – who co-founded Newmarket with Lord O’Shaughnessy and pharmaceuticals market access specialist Berkeley Greenwood – said Dark would help Newmarket in its mission to “support innovation into healthcare […] whether working with healthcare systems, manufacturers, operators, researchers, or investors.”

Also starting at Newmarket as a director on 1st March is David Reith, who joins the company from the NHS South East London Integrated Care Board (ICB), where he was director of commissioning strategy.

“The financial and clinical challenges in the system demand considered but ambitious adoption of the wide range of breakthrough science and solutions now coming on stream,” said Dark of his new role.

“Our work with partners will be to support this process with the right evidence and judgement.”