Life sciences talent and strategic consultancy RBW Consulting has announced that it is to create 25 new jobs after setting up a new office in Newcastle. The company already has two offices in the UK, as well as three in the US, and the new base will be within the Newcastle Helix science park.
Business Live reports that the opening of the Newcastle office comes only six months after its latest opening in the US, and will help establish the firm’s presence in the North East, chosen for its reputation as a centre for excellence in science and innovation, and will form part of the company’s wider expansion.
The new office will be in The Catalyst development within the science park, which is home to National Innovation Centre for Ageing and the National Innovation Centre for Data, and hosted and funded by Newcastle University in partnership with the UK Government.
Newcastle Helix is a 24-acre development that helps gather businesses, industry leaders, and researchers together in one internationally renowned innovation cluster.
RBW has commenced a recruitment drive for an initial team of ten for the new office, which will be expanded to 25 staff as the science hub grows.
Richard Warren, co-founder and CEO, said: “This is an exciting time for the life science sector, witnessing accelerated growth and unprecedented levels of innovation.”
He examined that the company’s goal is to facilitate access to the necessary talent needed by the life sciences sector and to partner on strategic development.
“Extending our current operations to become part of the thriving global centre for life science in Newcastle was a great opportunity for our business, and we look forward to playing an active role in this impressive ecosystem,” he added.
If you’re looking for life science permanent recruitment, talk to us today
The UK must ensure it works with other countries to prevent causing friction on medicine regulations and rules post-Brexit so that the country avoids being sidelined by the global pharmaceutical industry, according to a report from the drug lobby group, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI).
The Pharma Letter reports that the UK is being urged to work with its ‘science allies’ – for instance, the US, Canada, and Australia – while developing its post-Brexit medicines regulations, or it faces being left behind the ABPI said.
According to the association’s report, the UK makes up just 2.4 per cent of the global drug market and could lose influence if obstacles are created for manufacturers here.
Before Brexit, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) was a key contributor to the EU’s regulatory body, and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) was even based in London.
The EMA appoints teams from different member nations to assess new products, and the UK’s MHRA had typically taken on around 15 per cent of the work.
However, post=Brexit, and with the UK no longer a member nation of the bloc, the EMA has now relocated to Amsterdam, and the UK needs to redefine its role on the global stage, the ABPI said.
The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated to the world the strength of the UK’s life sciences sector relative to its population, and authorised the first COVID-19 vaccine in the Western world in December 2020, and implemented a robust rollout of the vaccine, which had a take-up ahead of most of Europe and the US.
The UK also became the first country to approve Merck & Co’s anti-viral pill in recent weeks, which is one of the first treatments for COVID-19.
The ABPI says that the UK must now capitalise on the momentum it gained from its vaccine successes by creating mutual recognition agreements, in essence, pacts that recognise the regulatory standards as equal, with trading partners on aspects such as batch testing.
The batch testing of products rose to prominence during the pandemic, as pharmaceutical firms patented to scale-up vaccine production as fast as possible, while trying to avoid unnecessary regulatory hurdles that would slow down exports of the lifesaving jab.
Colette Goldrick, the ABPI’s executive director for strategy and partnerships, said: “As the government begins to set out what Britain being a science superpower outside of the EU means, this is the perfect time to look at the important policies which attract companies to launch their products here in the UK.”
She added that diverging from the global medicines standard for the sake of it would inevitably become destructive and undermine the attractiveness of the UK’s life sciences sector.
The UK life sciences sector directly employs over 250,000 people and has a turnover of more than £80 billion.
If you’re looking for life science recruitment agencies in the UK, get in touch with our team today!
Clinical cancer trial recruitment has plummeted by 60% during the Covid-19 pandemic, leading to fears that treatment options will narrow, and new research will become more limited in scope. The Pharma Times reports that experts are calling for access to clinical trials for cancer patients to be extended.
The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) has recently published new figures which show that during 2020/21, the number of cancer patients recruited into clinical trials for cancer in England was 27,734, compared to an average of 67,057 over the previous three years.
The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) claim that the pandemic has exacerbated existing issues with clinical cancer trials, rather than being wholly to blame for the current situation. This raises concerns that innovative new therapies and technologies may be stifled, and that current cancer patients may not benefit from the best options that are available.
Several issues have been identified which limit patient access to clinical trials. These include an unnecessarily cumbersome administrative process for setting up trials, particularly for biomarker-driven studies. There is currently no rapid genetic system in place within the NHS to select patients for precision medical trials.
Professor Nick James, professor of prostate and bladder cancer research at The Institute of Cancer Research, London said: “Clinical trials are the single best way to turn advances in science into patient benefits.”
He added: “But trial recruitment has plummeted during the pandemic, slowing the pipeline of new treatments and robbing people with cancer access to potentially life-saving medicines. We need urgent investment in the COVID-19 recovery of clinical trials, and to get funding to those centres that at the moment are struggling to support clinical research.”
A further barrier to recruitment is the poor quality of information about the trial process that is available to both patients and doctors. What information there is, is often out of date, difficult for patients to understand, and fragmented across different formats and platforms. Regional funding levels for clinical research is also very variable.
The ICR is calling for immediate investment in cancer clinical trials, to restore pre-pandemic levels, and ensure that new research can progress swiftly. It also suggests that the fast-moving pace of the Covid-19 vaccines research, development, and trials can be learned from, and the same methods applied to boost cancer research.
The clinical trial process should be embedded early in the patient pathway, and seen as a routine course of action, rather than a last resort, the ICR recommends. There should be a ‘levelling up’ campaign, to address the current postcode lottery in accessing the right care.
Patients in rural and poorer areas, and ethnic minorities, are those who currently have the least access to trials. This can be addressed by ensuring that staff trained in oncology, radiology, and pathology, are located in more hospitals across the UK, and that specialists have more time to carry out research and development.
Finally, the ICR calls for information about trials to be made more widely accessible, centralised in one place, kept regularly updated, and made more easily understandable.
If you would like to register with life science recruitment, talk to us today.
The UK government has made an extra £375m of funding available for research into neurodegenerative diseases, it announced in a recent press release. The investment will help to further understanding and treatment of conditions such as motor neurone disease (MND), dementia, and Pick’s Disease.
The funds will be invested over five years, and applications can be made via the NIHR and UKRI websites. The Neurological Alliance has welcomed the news, after one of their members, the MND Association, led a campaign to raise awareness of MND. £50m of the funding will be allocated for MND research, the government has said.
Dr Brian Dickie, Director of Research Development at the MND Association, said: “It’s taken a long time for us to get MND on the scientific agenda – for most of the 150 years since it was first recognised as a disease it wasn’t seen as a target for research.”
He added: “That’s changed. In the last 25 years, I’ve seen more and more people across the world interested in understanding the disease, identifying causes and discovering treatments. And in the last decade, that explosion of new knowledge has turned MND into one of the fastest moving fields of neurological disease research.”
Various types of dementia, including Alzheimer’s Disease, Pick’s Disease, Fronto-temporal dementia, Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, Parkinson’s disease dementia, and Lewy Body dementia will also receive funding for research and treatment development.
According to the NHS, at least 850,000 people in the UK have a form of dementia. As people live longer, this is set to increase. Although the disease is not caused by old age, being over the age of 65 does significantly increase the risk of developing the condition. Currently, there is no cure; it is a terminal disease which can last for up to 15 years or more.
If you are looking for pharmaceutical recruitment agencies in the UK, talk to us today.
Life sciences have always been an important industry, but over the past two years has exploded in popularity.
It is an industry that is worth billions of pounds and has been a pivotal anchor and vital part of recovery efforts over the past two years.
As the life sciences evolve and become an increasingly critical industry, life science recruitment needs to evolve as well and provide opportunities to enter a fast-paced, highly rewarding industry that differ from the norm.
Here are some top tips to help boost recruitment in life sciences and help the industry evolve.
The past few years have highlighted the importance of the life sciences sector, how it can help enrich and save lives. However, the awareness and understanding of what the sector actually is and how far it reaches remains lacking.
Life sciences is a sector that connects so much to other sectors and other aspects of scientific discovery, connecting biology, botany, pharmacology, biochemistry and 30 or more other fields, but for many children and people who do not know people working in the field they may not know that.
There needs to be a greater discussion of the sector’s basic principles in the same way people talk about physics research or medical research.
It needs to be discussed at primary and secondary schools as a potential career path that students can explore, exposing them to the field and creating the next generation of life science that shares the passion and fascination for the industry that many researchers have.
The earlier people are made aware of it through education and advertising initiatives, the earlier students can develop a lifelong interest and start along the path towards their chosen research field.
Life sciences, like all industries, has positions at all levels and requires a wide range of skills, not all of which are necessarily related to those developed through a qualification in the field.
There are certain fields such as manufacturing or other industrial processes where the degree requirement is a hindrance to hiring, especially if the job requires specialist training anyway and the degree skills are left unused.
If a life sciences job does not require a BSc, make sure the application does not ask for one.
Instead, consider other development pathways, such as different levels of apprenticeship, training contracts or hiring people from other sectors for more universal positions.
The best and brightest industries cultivate and develop their talent, so it is essential that entry-level life sciences employees feel they have a clear pathway to develop their skills to turn their job and their passion into a career.
Encourage continuing professional development and, for highly capable but degreeless employees, create a programme that will enable them to gain the qualifications and specialist knowledge they need to progress rapidly in the industry.
The most forward-looking life sciences business leaders will know to look for untapped talent that has the skills, will and capability to succeed but may not have had the opportunity or even the knowledge that they could have had a future in the sector.
The government has revealed it is planning to speed up its booster vaccination drive, in a bid to get as many people triple-jabbed in the wake of the new Omicron variant arriving in the UK.
There is an increasing number of cases of the new Covid-19 strain in the country, which looks as though it is more transmissible than the other variants. Therefore, the prime minister has announced a new target to provide all adults with the booster by the end of January 2022.
Writing on Twitter, Boris Johnson stated: “This isn’t a call to arms, but a call to get jabs in arms. And quickly.”
He also tweeted: “Vaccines and boosters remain our best line of defence, so it is more important than ever that people come forward when eligible to get boosted.”
In order for the government to meet its new target, it has to speed up its vaccination programme by an additional million doses of the jab a week, from 2.4 million to around 3.5 million.
Currently, 46 million Brits have received their second dose of the vaccine, while just 18.2 million have been given their booster. Therefore, a further 28 million need to receive it before the end of next month.
While there are concerns the vaccination will not be effective against the more severe Omicron, health secretary Sajid Javid reassured the public that it would still help protect against the strain.
The delivery of the inoculation has become one of the biggest achievements in the history of life science, with the world’s leading experts creating, testing and rolling out a vaccine to fight the virus in less than a year. To date, more than eight billion doses of the jab have been administered globally, protecting more than half of the world’s population from the deadly virus.
Become part of vaccination drive and find a job you love by registering with life science recruitment today.
While the bulk of medical and scientific research during the Covid-19 pandemic has understandably been on understanding the virus, what medications might treat it effectively and how to devise a vaccine, attention may shift somewhat to dealing with some of the more long-term effects of the disease.
For all that vaccines and Dexamethasone might save lives, for many who have had the virus the initial illness was just the start of their woes. The phenomenon of ‘long Covid’ started to appear in the public consciousness last spring, with reported symptoms including severe fatigue, breathlessness, heart palpitations and other persistent symptoms.
How bad the problem is, how it manifests and what may be done to treat it is a question to which the University of Glasgow has turned its attention.
It has sent invites to all those who have undertaken NHS Scotland tests for Covid – including those who tested negative to help with sampling – in order to establish how many of those who have had the disease have failed to make a full recovery.
While life science recruiters may in due course be seeking researchers who can help find effective treatments, knowing the extent of the issue may help provide important clues into likely targets for any new medications that could be developed.
Professor of Public Health at the University of Glasgow and prospective study lead Professor Jill Pell said: “Most people recover quickly and completely after infection with Covid-19, but some people have reported a wide variety of long-term problems.”
She added: “It is crucial that we find out how many people have long-term problems, and what those problems are, so that we can set up systems to spot problems early.”
Among the features of the study will be questionnaires to establish what the state of people’s health was before they caught Covid, so any patterns for long Covid sufferers can be identified.
Consultant Scientist at Public Health Scotland Dr Andrew McCauley said: “This study is unique in that it will look at all COVID-19 positive cases irrespective of their initial symptoms, or whether they required any medical care during their illness. “
This wider scope may reflect the reality that the virus has an exceptionally wide range of consequences, ranging from no symptoms to a fatal respiratory disease. In addition, some people who suffer long Covid do so after being asymptomatic during the initial stage. The study may shed some light on why this is and aid the search for treatments.
There has been both anecdotal and no study evidence to suggest that vaccination can help prevent instances of long Covid among those who are infected. The latest data on this has been published by the Office for National Statistics, concerning the beneficial effects of a first dose, although at this stage it does not extend to establishing if this last to the second dose or indeed is enhanced by it.
That may go to show that there is still a lot of work to be done on long Covid in order to understand the condition and devise ways of treating it effectively.
The head of the successful Oxford University project to create a vaccine against the Sars-Cov2 virus has called on the scientific community and governments to turn their attention to tackling a dozen more diseases.
Professor Sarah Gilbert, whose work developed the vaccine manufactured and distributed by AstraZeneca, told the BBC’s Inside Health that the kind of technological advances that made the development of such a vaccine so quickly possible – like the use of mRNA and viral vectors – could now be deployed to swiftly develop more vaccines against other diseases.
Giving an analogy of how ‘plug and play’ science speeds up the creation of new vaccines, she said: “We’ve got the cake and we can put a cherry on top, or we can put some pistachios on top if we want a different vaccine, we just add the last bit and then we’re ready to go.”
The professor’s list includes Mers, Lassa, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, Nipah, Ebola, Rift Valley Fever, Chikungunya, Dengue, Hantavirus, Plague, Marburg and Q Fever.
Work has already begun on some of these viruses, such as the plague. While the Black Death that wiped out a third of the population of Europe in medieval times is avoidable thanks to modern hygiene – it was spread by fleas that jumped from animals to human hosts – it has not vanished from the world altogether, with over 3,000 cases worldwide between 2010 and 2015.
Moderna is also looking at taking on the Nipah virus, which kills three quarters of those infected. The virus is zoonotic and most commonly comes from pigs, although it can also be spread by bats.
Prof Gilbert noted that the challenge of dealing with some viruses is harder than that posed by a coronavirus, where the spike protein provides an obvious antigen target for the vaccine to be aimed at. This is less true for more complex diseases like malaria and tuberculosis. “They are much more difficult than with these outbreak pathogens, which are fairly simple viruses,” she remarked.
Other factors may also play a part in the speed at which vaccines are developed. With the world’s scientific and medical communities able to throw themselves into vaccine research with heavy backing from governments and plentiful supplies of trial volunteers, progress on the coronavirus vaccines was given every chance of progressing quickly.
By contrast, where some diseases only affect developing countries the amount of resources that might be made available by commercial pharmaceutical companies or western governments might be comparatively limited.
However, vaccine research may not just be about tackling diseases that there is currently no protection against. Professor Gilbert noted that needle-free vaccinations might be another beneficial development, especially in instances where a disease is primarily a lung infection, such as Covid. In such instances a nasal spray may work better.
Needle-free vaccinations may also be beneficial in increasing take-up of vaccines among those who suffer from trypanophobia, a fear of injections. While some people have bought into conspiracy theories or put their trust in ‘alternative’ medicine, there will be some for whom the fear of a needle has prevented them getting their jab when they would willingly take a pill or spray.
If you’re looking to register with a life science recruitment company, talk to us today.
During the announcement of the Autumn Budget on Wednesday 27 October, the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak pledged to commit to spending £5 billion on health-related research and development before 2025.
Pharmaphorum reports that the funding has been welcomed by industry groups, however, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) said it had concerns about how the money will be spent.
A spokesperson for the ABPI said: “Increasing health-specific research to £5 billion is a positive signal that the government remains committed to this agenda, despite the delay in when we will reach £22 billion a year of public investment in R&D.”
The ABPI said there is a need for further clarity on how the government plans to fund institutions such as the MHRA and NICE, but it welcomed the extra funding that is part of the Treasury’s pledge to raise spending on R&D in the UK to £22 billion a year.
However, the Chancellor also announced during his Budget presentation that he will be moving the goalposts on his target, pushing it back by two years to 2026/27.
The ABPI also welcomed the announcement by the Chancellor that R&D tax reliefs would be reformed to ‘support modern research methods’.
The £5 billion funding pot does contain funds that have already been assigned for specific uses, for instance, £95 million to the Office for Life Sciences to help deliver the government’s Life Sciences Vision, as well as finds to launch the PM’s cancer, obesity, and mental health healthcare missions.
The manufacture of medicines, diagnostics, and vaccines will receive £354 million for research into health resilience, while also creating new roles within the UK life sciences sector.
If you’re looking for life science recruitment and security training, talk to us today.
The past two years have been a period where the life sciences industry has seen rapid change and innovation.
With more money being invested in a bolder vision than ever for the sector, there are many STEM graduates and people currently working in other science and engineering fields who are interested in life sciences recruitment and working on answering the biggest healthcare questions the country faces.
Here are some top tips to find the right job in life science.
Life sciences is a unique field where entire parts of the industry seemingly come from nowhere as the result of fast-moving research. The practical use of artificial intelligence is a case in point, as it is a field that has grown exponentially over the past decade.
Keep abreast of different fields and industries that are springing up now, as well as potential areas of interest that may grow over the next few years.
Recruiters are looking for people with the right qualifications, skills and credentials for a role, but at the same time, they are also looking for someone who is the right fit for a team.
Having a close relationship with your colleagues will help ease the harder moments and make the triumphs feel even sweeter.
Having a powerful drive, ambition and interest will be the motivator to help you keep going during times when the work gets harder, the hours get longer and complications begin to seep into research and development work.
Find a field that you love and look for roles in that field.
One of the biggest technologies that is affecting the pharmaceutical and MedTech industries is machine learning, and life science recruiters are looking for experts in AI to help harness the power of machine learning to make incredible discoveries.
A recent example of machine learning’s effect on the medical world is the AlphaFold protein structure database developed in part by Google’s DeepMind that predicts a protein’s 3D structure from its amino acid sequence, which can help boost research into producing medicines and therapies.
These advances are the result of an artificial intelligence concept known as machine learning.
Most computers are programmed to perform and complete tasks, which requires the work of expert engineers and programmers to create the program used to convert a particular input into a particular output.
Machine learning works differently, as it allows a computer algorithm to make its own decision on how to perform a task without explicitly being told how to do so.
Generally how this works is that an algorithm will be fed training data, which is the typical data it is expected to encounter and what the answer a person is looking for in each case.
One common example is in diagnostic equipment, where medical images taken using an ultrasound or CT scanner would be fed into an algorithm that looks at the information and aims to spot particular anomalies or signs of a particular disorder.
Once the algorithm is given enough correct answers, it develops its own way to understand how to get to the right answer, in a similar way to how human beings learn to solve problems.
The advantage a machine has is speed, as once it is suitably trained to find accurate results it can undertake checks many orders of magnitude faster than a human being, making them ideal for drug discovery.
One of the biggest investment companies in America is going to invest £850million to create new life sciences laboratories and office space in Cambridge, which is going to drive up the need for life science recruitment agencies in the UK, as the enormous investment is set to support up to 2,700 new jobs.
The investment, via Blackstone’s BioMed Realty company, is acquiring two sites in England’s famous university city, and will create approximately 800,000sq ft. of space that will help address a lack of available capacity in the booming life science sector.
“If Britain is to foster a new golden era for life sciences, we must ensure that the brilliant scientists across the country have the funding,” said Stephen Schwarzman, Chairman and Chief Executive of Blackstone, “[as well as the] labs they need to conduct their research, and that innovative companies have the space to set up, grow and maintain their businesses.”
The investment from Blackstone comes amid surging interest in Britain’s life sciences, a sector that has generated increased interest since the pandemic, producing around £80billion in revenue per year and employing over a quarter of a million people.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he will “hail” the trading relationship between the UK and the US:
“[It is] no surprise that when American companies look to expand and collaborate internationally they so often look to the UK, and vice versa,” Johnson said. “Every American dollar spent in the UK is creating jobs around the country and boosting the UK’s reputation in crucial and highly skilled areas like health and scientific research.”
If you’re looking for life science recruitment agencies in the UK, please get in touch with us today.