World-renowned scientist and biotech entrepreneur Dr Paul Peter Tak shares expert commentary on Brexit and its impact on the NHS. Dr Tak is GlaxoSmithKline’s former Senior Vice President of R&D and Chief Immunology Officer and he had this to say to www.hospitalhub.co.uk…
I expect Brexit, and certainly a ‘no-deal’ Brexit to be bad for patients, academic research and the life sciences sector.
I am not alone in this opinion: a recent survey has revealed that 59% of healthcare industry professionals indicated that their sentiment on the impact of Brexit on the healthcare sector has become more negative during the last 3 months.
The National Health Service (NHS) is expected to face a significant shortage of many thousands of nurses, social workers and physicians as a result of Brexit. The guarantee of stable, long term contracts is important to attract and retain care providers from EU countries.
Academic research in the UK, which has benefited disproportionally from EU funding, will incur significant losses as the UK will no longer be eligible for European grants. This is not only important in terms of money, but also in light of the important consortiums and networks that are created by EU programs like the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) – science is a collaborative effort.
The UK will also not be able anymore to shape the European research agenda. Similar to the implications for the NHS, recruitment of the best European academics will be significantly affected. There is a risk that many European scientists will move to countries other than the UK, as they will looking for an environment where they perceive the open mentality that makes science flourish.
Biotech and pharmaceutical companies that want to conduct multi-country clinical trials currently register on a single EU clinical trial database. After Brexit, UK companies will need to apply individually to each country, which represents a huge administrative burden and cost.
The UK will also lose influence over the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the regulator that approves medicines for use within the EU; the EMA is already moving to Amsterdam as a direct result of Brexit.
The consequence of Brexit will be that the UK and the EU will need to have separate databases on pharmaceutical products in the market, leading to an increase in spending by the UK. Now that the implications of Brexit for this important sector start to become clear, the UK people should be given the chance to indicate whether this is what they really want.
