
On Thursday 20th October I visited the UK Bioscience Forum at the Royal College of Surgeons in London. This was a fascinating event with attendance from the UK bioscience research sector (both academic and commercial) as well as charities and the National Health Service and Public Health England.
Whilst pharmacovigilance and risk management was not necessarily at the forefront of peoples minds, as many of the products are a very early stages of development, I did have some good conversations. Many of these products will have very targeted populations making the benefit-risk decision making rather complex, and the integration of the patient perspective becomes more important.
The event was wide ranging with talks looking at the state of the bio-science industry in the UK, issues surrounding anti-microbial resistance and advances in devices and therapeutics for Type 1 diabetes. The final talk of the day, almost inevitably, was the potential impact of Brexit. The complexity of the upcoming negotiations will have an impact on all of us – whether we live in the UK, the EU, or elsewhere.