As I took on my new oncology role with GSK in November , and started to review and shape our business plans for the coming years, it struck me how much of a personal, as well as professional, interest I have in accelerating patient access to innovation. And from this I asked myself β where can I make the most positive difference day-to-day? Where can I work with others, to identify and solve some of the biggest challenges that currently result in UK patients often missing out on the widespread use of new treatments that we see elsewhere?
We will all be impacted by medical advances in this country in our lifetimes. These advances rely on previous advances, and those on developments that came before, and so on. The faster we move today, the faster we will all see the benefits tomorrow.
And from this, the widest possible health improvements will be felt by the widest possible number of people in the UK. Of course, the UK is in a strong position to create fast access in the initial development and deployment phases of new treatments.
We have internationally renowned institutions, such as the MHRA, and in the NHS we have world-leading specialist centres and pioneering ambitious trials. The UK remains a key market for new approaches to the very concept of how we treat patients in the future, such as in immunology, or in potentially curative cell and gene therapies. In the early development phases of innovation, the UK is well-positioned to compete with investment against comparator economies. If the most positive difference for patients is in trialling and proving concepts here, then we can be confident that GSK and the wider industry are well-equipped to continue to play our part.
There will always be the case for bespoke agreements in early access β be that due to unmet need or to improve clinical practice, where commercial return is minimal. The question is, will seeing this model become the norm create the biggest positive long-term difference for patients? The purpose of these is to try to make the most impactful, earliest, positive difference, in order to create a gateway from accelerated licensing routes, through managed or conditional access, and eventually into the NHS, and to provide hope for all patients; not just those in a trial or in the early access scheme itself.
