Alliance Boots, the UK’s leading pharmacy provider, has allied with BioCity, the UK’s leading bioscience incubation company, to establish a new health business incubator.

MedCity, a new subsidiary of BioCity, will provide laboratory and office space for start-up and growing life science companies in the Nottingham Enterprise Zone on the Alliance Boots site at Beeston.

The new medical science incubator will combine BioCity’s experience of creating environments for life science businesses to grow in with Alliance Boots’ long experience of the medical supply chain.

Both companies have roots in Nottingham and have played key roles in the development of the city’s life science business community.

Dr Glenn Crocker (pictured), CEO of BioCity, said: “MediCity is a timely addition to the thriving healthcare and medical technology sector in the UK. I am particularly excited by the benefits Alliance Boots market insights can bring to early-stage companies, with the potential to accelerate development and provide a possible route to market.

“We are interested in speaking to all businesses involved in health, beauty and wellness, whether they are established or still developing a concept.”

“We warmly welcome MediCity onto our site,” said Alex Gourlay, Chief Executive, Health & Beauty Division, Alliance Boots. “Alliance Boots and BioCity’s complementary expertise will attract businesses to MediCity and further enhance our existing world-class innovation hub in Nottingham.”

Alliance Boots has over 3,000 pharmacy-led health and beauty retail businesses in nine countries. BioCity manages business incubation sites in Nottingham, Glasgow and Alderley Edge.

The NHS is limiting patient care by reducing access to medicines in order to achieve short-term cost control targets, the ABPI has said.

At its annual conference, the industry association emphasised that France, Spain and Germany spend three times as much per patient on new medicines as the UK.

While it focused on medicines, the ABPI statement echoed comments from the NHS Confederation on the way that ‘salami slicing’ of healthcare is being used as a short-term financial solution.

Both organisations are calling for service redesign to shift healthcare from the hospital to the community, rather than further cutbacks to existing services.

In particular, the ABPI noted, denying patients access to new medicines on grounds of cost is holding back the treatment of long-term conditions within the community, while giving hospitals more work.

Spending on new medicines is set to rise by only 1.3% by 2015 – half the projected increase in total NHS spend, and far below the rate of inflation.

The UK spends 74p per person per day on medicines, compared to over £1 in Spain, Germany and France. It spends only 7p per person per day on new medicines, compared to over 20p per day in those countries.

Stephen Whitehead, Chief Executive of the ABPI, said: “Our healthcare system needs to focus much more on caring for patients in their own homes and much less on treatment in expensive hospitals. Investing in new, innovative medicines will be absolutely key to this.

“By 2015, the new medicines which are being launched now will make up just 2.5% of the entire medicines budget, and yet it is these treatments which are able to transform the way many diseases are treated.”

Four UK pharmaceutical and biotechnology SMEs have won the opportunity to promote their innovations at BIO 2013 in Chicago (22–25 April).

The winners of the UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) Innovation Competition are Abcodia, Critical Pharmaceuticals, Nanomerics and PsiOxus Therapeutics.

The companies will receive £1,500 towards flights and accommodation, and a year’s free membership of the BioIndustry Association (BIA).

The UKTI Innovation Competition, open to life science SMEs in the UK, highlights excellence in groundbreaking technologies for a global audience.

As the world’s largest biotechnology event, attended by delegates from more than 65 countries, the BIO Convention represents a major opportunity for small UK companies to make contacts.

Abcodia (London) discovers and validates biomarkers for the early detection and screening of cancer. Critical Pharmaceuticals (Nottingham) is developing a pipeline of recombinant protein and peptide therapies, using patented drug delivery technologies. Nanomerics (London) is a speciality pharmaceutical company that uses patented nanotechnology to boost the performance of known drugs. PsiOxus Therapeutics (Oxfordshire) is developing novel therapies for cancer and other life-threatening diseases.

Gareth King, CEO of Critical Pharmaceuticals, said: “We have recently announced the results of a second clinical study on our intranasal growth hormone product demonstrating clinical proof of concept, and look forward to meeting with commercial partners at BIO 2013 to progress the product into phase 2/3 clinical development.”

“Nanomerics is delighted to be able to showcase to a global audience its Molecular Envelope Technology, which boosts the activity of drugs and gets them where they need to be,” explained Andreas Schatzlein, CEO of Nanomerics. “In a time of undiminished medical need and increasing economic pressure it is crucial that we make the most of the drug compounds that we already understand.”

Patent restrictions on drug trials in the UK will be lifted, making it easier for new drugs to be compared with the standard treatment.

The new exceptions enable companies to trial a new drug or a generic version against an established brand without violating its patent.

The changes to the Patents Act could both strengthen the UK as a base for pharmaceutical R&D and improve the medical value of clinical trial findings.

Life science industry trade associations have welcomed the new regulations for the boost they offer to innovative drug development, despite potential losses to established brands.

An Intellectual Property Office consultation showed overwhelming industry support for both changes to the patent law: the ‘research exception’ for trials of new drugs and the ‘Bolar exception’ for trials of generic drugs.

Not only does the rule that head-to-head clinical trials infringe patent make it harder to establish new drugs, it has also led to widespread criticism of clinical trials that compare a new drug with placebo – which no doctor prescribes.

Most EU countries exempt clinical trials from patent infringement, and the UK law has been a barrier to clinical trial work in the UK.

“The Government is keen to create a supportive environment for pharmaceutical research and development in the UK,” said Lord Younger (pictured), Minister for Intellectual Property.

“Helping the industry get their products to market as quickly as possible will benefit patients, the industry and the economy.”

Stephen Whitehead, CEO of the ABPI, commented: “This is a welcome development that will make the UK a more attractive place in which to conduct clinical trials, which in turn will encourage pharmaceutical companies to continue operating here.”

The number of new drugs becoming available to NHS patients is not in decline, contrary to widespread industry rumours.

Researchers analysing the British National Formulary found that the average number of drugs introduced per year is marginally higher than in the 1970s.

There was a dip in the number of new drugs becoming available between 1998 and 2006, but the pipeline has since become stronger.

A team at Birmingham University looked at drugs introduced to the Formulary from 1971 to 2011.

The average number of drugs introduced per year was just under 23, with the current level 0.16 above the level of the 1970s.

The report noted that short-term fluctuations have given rise to impressions in the past that pharmaceutical innovation, or NHS uptake of it, is in decline.

According to author Dr Derek Ward, “We started this research because there was a great deal of pessimism within the industry and among pharmaceutical companies about the number of new drugs that were getting to the market.

“We found that looking at the data over the longer term there was a slight increase. This is obviously a good thing for patients.”

ABPI Chief Executive Stephen Whitehead commented: “It is a common myth that our industry has struggled to develop new medicines, when in reality the research pipelines of companies are healthy.”

The report noted that the time and cost of drug development are increasing and the innovation model is becoming more complex.

Dr Phil L’Huillier of Cancer Research UK noted: “The landscape is shifting, with pharmaceutical companies increasingly collaborating with academia for discovery and development of drugs.”

Bayer HealthCare has founded a new pan-European consortium for drug discovery, the European Lead Factory (ELF).

The five-year project will create a small molecule library to resource drug discovery projects based on targets from pharma and academic researchers.

Working with six other European pharma companies, Bayer will co-ordinate the compilation of 300,000 substances and contribute 50,000 of these.

A further library of 200,000 compounds will be developed by industry SMEs and academics.

The two libraries will make up a Joint European Compound Collection that will be accessible to all project partners, and to health organisations and SMEs.

Targets for drug discovery will be selected, through competitive calls, from those proposed by pharma companies and health providers.

“The European Lead Factory is an outstanding example of a project in which public-private partnerships enable collaborative drug discovery,” commented Hanno Wild, Senior VP and Head of Candidate Generation & Exploration at Bayer HealthCare Global Drug Discovery. “The platform brings together academia and industry as well as SMEs in a unique partnership aiming to discover innovative medicines.”

The project is part of the European Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), a partnership that supports industry and academics in collaborative research.

Michel Goldman, IMI Executive Director, said: “This unique project will give European researchers unprecedented access to industry chemical collections and facilitate the translation of their findings into actual treatments for patients.”

The ELF has 30 member organisations from pharma companies, SMEs and academia. Inspired by the increasingly successful ‘open innovation’ model, it aims to achieve a sustainable role in European drug development.

The project’s five-year budget of €196m is made up of €80m from the European Commission, €91m from participating pharma companies and €25m from other participants.

An entrepreneurial team within Janssen’s R&D operation is working with the NHS to promote innovative dementia care.

Janssen Healthcare Innovation and the NHS have partnered to launch the Innovation Challenge Prize for Dementia.

The biopharma company, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, will award up to £150,000 for solutions that make a lasting difference to the lives of people suffering from dementia.

As a first step, people involved with dementia care as healthcare providers, carers, patients and patient groups are being encouraged to identify the key issues in diagnosis, treatment and management of the condition.

Once the challenges have been agreed, relevant stakeholders will be able to submit innovative solutions to be assessed by a panel of experts from the NHS, industry and academia.

The ageing population is driving up the incidence of dementia in the UK: the terminal condition is estimated to affect 800,000 people, with the cost of NHS care predicted to rise from £23bn to £28bn by 2018.

“We are delighted to be the first industry partner to support the NHS in these important innovation challenges,” said Marco Mohwinckel of Janssen Healthcare Innovation (pictured).

“We hope this initiative will help identify forward-thinking solutions to help transform care for people with dementia and better support their caregivers.”

The deadline for ideas to help define the key challenges is 20 March 2013.

UK Science Minister David Willetts intervened with NHS leaders to promote AstraZeneca’s anticoagulant Brilique (ticagrelor).

According to the department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), Willetts was acting within his remit of “strategic relationship management”.

However, a Cass Business School expert has suggested that his action on behalf of the pharma company was anti-competitive.

Brilique is recommended by NICE for prevention of strokes and heart attacks in patients with unstable angina, but take-up of the medicine has been uneven.

Vanessa Rhodes, a spokeswoman for AstraZeneca, justified the company’s action: “Despite this recommendation and the NHS target of reducing the mortality rate from cardiovascular disease, it is currently only routinely available to patients in some parts of England.

“We share the NHS and the government’s objective of broadening patient access to innovative medicines.”

After Willetts’ intervention was reported in The Times, BIS issued a press release explaining: “He regularly meets with companies to discuss issues of importance to them, and has a strong interest in making sure that the environment for the life-sciences industry is conducive to innovation and growth.”

AstraZeneca is undergoing major austerity measures under new chief executive Pascal Soriot, who has said the heads of R&D and global commercial operations will leave the company at the end of this month.

Willetts’ action could be justified as an attempt to enforce the Government’s innovation strategy by ensuring that NICE-recommended drugs are available through the NHS, or as an attempt to protect British jobs.

However, Stefan Haefliger, Lecturer in Strategic Management and Innovation at London’s Cass Business School, said it was merely commercial lobbying.

Politicians “are supposed to support the best drug for the patient and not promote local jobs,” he argued.

A limited ‘experimental’ version of the Government’s Innovation Scorecard points to variation and low overall levels in patients’ access to new NICE-approved medicines across England.

The spreadsheet and report published by the Health and Social Care Information Centre summarise the existing data on the availability of 76 medicines and 6 medical technologies recommended by NICE through NHS organisations.

While the initial ‘scorecard’ cannot be used to assess the performance of individual organisations, it will stimulate discussion on how to develop a fuller and more accurate version.

The goal of the Innovation Scorecard is to support the uptake of innovative therapies by the NHS, in line with the Government’s ‘Innovation, Health and Wealth’ strategy.

More information is needed to address the causes of the variation in availability of these treatments, since patient demographics and local purchasing arrangements may influence the data.

The report includes: estimates of actual and expected use of medicines; volumes of medicines used in primary care (daily dose per 100,000 of CCG population); and volumes of medicines used in secondary care (mg of drug purchased by hospital trust per 100,000 bed days).

The ABPI has expressed concern that the initial ‘scorecard’ not only reveals widespread variation but also shows the uptake of new medicines to be generally well below the expected level.

Stephen Whitehead, ABPI Chief Executive, commented: “This first Scorecard is less detailed than ABPI hoped for and we envisage future scorecards offering more details on how the NHS is complying with NICE guidance. But we welcome its publication as a first step on a transparency journey in the new NHS.

“I believe the Government understands the challenges, but it must act quickly and decisively to drive the adoption and diffusion of the newest and most innovative medicines across England.”

Researchers in the UK and the US have developed a method of designing drugs that can act on multiple gene targets, enabling them to treat complex diseases.

The new drug development process could revolutionise the treatment of major diseases including diabetes, cancer and bipolar disorder.

Whereas current genetic therapies target individual genes, leading to a highly specialised or ‘personalised’ drug regime for the patient, the new drugs could be effective across a wide patient spectrum.

Susceptibility to complex diseases such as cancer is known to depend on a considerable number of genetic and non-genetic factors – so the impact of a drug that can treat all known genetic factors could be massive.

Ironically, this research breakthrough could reverse the trend of pharmaceutical innovation towards ‘personalised’ medicine over the last decade, renewing the role of broad-spectrum drugs in treating major diseases.

The research collaboration by scientists at the Universities of Dundee (UK) and North Carolina (US) has developed a method of computerised drug design, based on large databases of drug-target interactions.

The scientists tested 800 predicted drug-target interactions using new drugs designed by this method: 75% were confirmed by in vitro tests.

In addition, the concept of using one new drug to treat a complex disease across a range of genetic factors has been proven in mouse models.

A drug designed to treat ADHD was shown to be effective in preventing typical hyperactive behaviours in two mouse groups with different genetic defects: a missing dopamine receptor and a missing brain neuropeptide.

Study co-leader Brian L. Roth, Professor of Pharmacology at the UNC School of Medicine, commented that for a complex disease, “we know there are likely hundreds of different genes that can influence the risk for disease and, because of that, there’s likely no single gene and no one drug target that will be useful for treating it.

“And so the realisation has been that perhaps one way forward is to make drugs that hit collections of drug targets simultaneously. Here we show how to efficiently and effectively make designer drugs that can do that.”