The UK Pharmaceutical Base for Vaccine Development: Barriers and Recommendations

A CaSE report highlighting the need for policy changes if British pharmaceutical expertise are to be harnessed to greatest social and economic effect.

Concentrating on the use of British pharmaceutical expertise in combating disease in the developing world, the report brings together the views of a wide range of international charities, major companies, senior academics, UN agencies, parliamentarians and government officials.

“Collectively, this group of people has a powerful view of what needs to be done to ensure that the potential of British science is maximised in this field.”

Amanda Arnold, author of the report

Key findings:

• A need for the Government to continue reversing the historic underinvestment in the public science base
• Challenges to the European regulatory regime, which creates a barrier to vaccine development
• Recommendations on strengthening public-private partnerships so that the developing world can benefit more from collaboration between the sectors

The participants included in the study represented:

• Major charities like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Global Fund
• Pharmaceutical corporations such as AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline
• Research funders and instutions such as the Wellcome Trust and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
• The United Nations World Health Organisation
• The UK Government’s Department for International Development and British Parliamentarians
• Development bodies such as ActionAid Nepal

“This group of experts even stressed how harmful the Research Assessment Exercise can be, because it forces researchers to concentrate on work of a particular kind that will score well in that arbitrary game.

CaSE has been arguing for years for policy changes to liberate the potential of Britain’s excellent research base. By shining a bright and focused light onto one specific area of science and its application, Amanda’s report gives these views a tangible meaning and a fresh importance.”

Dr Peter Cotgreave, Director of CaSE