Minister thanks pharma for help in swine flu fight
pharmafile | April 30, 2009 | News story | Research and Development |Â Â h1n1Â
Health secretary Alan Johnson kept an appointment to address the ABPI's annual conference yesterday despite the spread of swine flu into the UK.
Further confirmed cases emerged yesterday, including one 12-year-old girl at a school in Devon, bring the total number in the UK to five.
The rapidly emerging threat meant the health secretary had to make two separate announcements to the House of Commons, but still found time to address the UK industry association's annual conference, highlighting the good relations between the Department of Health and the ABPI.
He told the conference in London: "I want to express my thanks for everything the pharma industry is doing in this current outbreak – companies are helping to build up stocks of anti-virals and its researchers around the world are working on a vaccine for this virus."
Johnson added that the pharma industry's expertise and heritage in R&D made it well placed to help the UK tackle not only the new flu strain, but also the financial crisis.
"It was with good reason that Barack Obama said that the answer to our current economic crisis can be found in the universities and laboratories."
The minister highlighted two recent trade missions he undertook to promote the industry, one to the US with business secretary Lord Mandelson and another to Japan with the ABPI's director general Dr Richard Barker.
Also present at the conference, Barker commented that Japanese officials and industry representatives were 'frankly astonished' that a British health minister would promote its pharma industry overseas, saying such a gesture was unheard of in Japan.
Johnson highlighted a number of initiatives recently unveiled, including moves to increase uptake of new medicines built into the new PPRS pricing agreement, and efforts to speed up NICE appraisals.
He also hailed Treasury plans to give tax breaks to R&D-intensive companies in the UK that were centred around the generation of patents and intellectual property.
"Let's really make the UK a magnet for IP rights," he said.
The idea for the new tax breaks is said to have originated in the new Office of Life Sciences (OLS) an offshoot of Lord Mandelson's BERR trade department. The OLS is headed up by Paul Drayson, founder of UK vaccines company Powderject, and is expected to produce further recommendations in the coming weeks.
Despite the optimism, senior industry figures remain cautious until further details of the various initiatives are announced.
Of particular significance will be proposals contained in the new PPRS intended to promote the uptake of new medicines. But despite being agreed in November last year, there is as yet no detail about how these ideas can be put in place.
Richard Blackburn, managing director of Pfizer UK, commented: "We look forward to seeing what those measures are going to be."
Related stories:
UK scientists to examine swine flu
April 29, 2009
GSK pledges help in flu outbreak
April 28, 2009
Pharma welcomes UK taxation pledge
April 23, 2009
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