New life sciences vision sets path for UK to build on pandemic response and deliver life-changing innovations to patients

The response of the UK’s life sciences sector to COVID-19 will be used as a blueprint to accelerate the delivery of life-changing innovations to patients, as part of the government’s new UK Life Sciences Vision published today.

Today’s new UK Life Sciences Vision, co-developed with businesses and experts in the field, sets out a mission-led approach with bold ambition for the next decade to ensure scientific excellence, partnered with the dynamism of industry, is replicated to assist the NHS in solving the most pressing health challenges of our generation now and in the future.

The Vision outlines seven critical healthcare missions that government, industry, the NHS, academia and medical research charities will work together on at speed to solve – from cancer treatment to tackling dementia.

These missions will focus on preventing, diagnosing, monitoring and treating disease early, using innovative clinical trials to develop breakthrough products and treatments quickly to help save lives, and accelerating the development and adoption of new drugs, diagnostics, medical technology and digital tools.

The missions are:

• Accelerating the pace of studies into novel dementia treatment
• Enabling early diagnosis and treatments, including immune therapies such as cancer vaccines
• Sustaining the UK’s position in vaccine discovery, development and manufacturing
• Treatment and prevention of cardiovascular diseases and its major risk factors, including obesity
• Reducing mortality and morbidity from respiratory disease in the UK and globally
• Addressing the underlying biology of ageing
• Increasing the understanding of mental health conditions, including work to redefine diseases and develop tools to address them

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “We are indebted to the ingenuity of UK life sciences and its pioneers, with the discovery of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and the seamless collaboration between our scientists, industry, regulators and NHS saving millions of lives during the pandemic. We must make sure this is the norm and use this new way of working to search for life-changing breakthroughs against diseases such as cancer, dementia and obesity, as we have done with COVID. That’s why we are setting out our new Life Sciences Vision to bottle the formula we have developed to tackle COVID and improve health outcomes for patients across the board in the UK, and secure jobs and investment in the process as we build back better.”