Thread by @pmdfoster

🚨🚨🇬🇧🇪🇺💉💊💉💊💉💊🇪🇺🇬🇧🚨🚨 EXC: Staff at UK medical regulator ⁦MHRA⁩ express alarm at plan to slash 300 of 1,200 jobs after #brexit — despite #covid19 triumphs and U.K. gov wanting life sciences at heart of economic recovery. 🤔🤔🤔stay with me/1
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Yes, that's the same MHRA regulator that stopped the #Covid19 ventilator programme descending into farce and helped fast-track coronavirus vaccines approvals -- for which it was lauded as "phenomenal" in UK govt's life sciences plan./2

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And the same MHRA that Iain Duncan Smith in this TIGRR report on post-#Brexit deregulation said should have an expanded remit and be at heart of the 'build back better' plans, to maximise the strength of UK life sciences/3

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…

And yet the MHRA is going to cut up to a quarter of its 1,200 staff as it 'restructures' -- the government says to become a "world-leading" regulator, but senior staff -- per letter seen @FinancialTimes -- have "deep concern" about what his happening/4

@FinancialTimes Experts in regulation of medicines/devices tell me that some restructuring IS needed -- to end the historical divide of meds/devices regime, to streamline clinical trials process etc (and work on this is being done) BUT hard to square this with massive cost-cutting/5

@FinancialTimes This is particularly so at a time -- per @kipping_michael of InnovateUK -- when new EU MDR regulations are forcing businesses to choose which products to register. Products are leaving the market, which won't be good for NHS patients. We need capacity. /6

@FinancialTimes @kipping_michael As Kipping tells me: “The medical devices and in vitro diagnostics industry is facing a critical period. Cutting back on the UK regulator in the face of this challenge is deeply concerning.” /7

@FinancialTimes @kipping_michael But from the inside it just looks like the MHRA is in danger of being hollowed, becoming a rubber-stamper, not a world-leader. Per insider: “The fear is companies will go to Europe or the US [for reg approvals] and then come back to us for a cheap, rubber-stamping exercise.”/8

@FinancialTimes @kipping_michael The government and the MHRA don't see it this way -- promising in a statement to “continue to be a world-class regulator that delivers the right outcomes for patients" but those claims ring hollow to experts and insiders I've spoken to /9

@FinancialTimes @kipping_michael This comes at a criticial juncture of medical devices and medical regulations after Brexit, where the UK has to make very strategic choices about how it retains its world-leading position in the field of medical regulation as it goes through a period of intense change/10

@FinancialTimes @kipping_michael There is a prize to be grasped here -- worth reading this piece by @SamuelMarcLowe and Prof Derek Hill on how the UK do this -- it is an area of genuine debate/discussion /11

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@FinancialTimes @kipping_michael @SamuelMarcLowe But in the (marvelously understated) view of Prof Hill: "While there may be some benefits from restructuring the MHRA...it does seem like a strange time to be cutting its overall budget."

Others who cant be named said it was "crackers" and "bonkers" /12

@FinancialTimes @kipping_michael @SamuelMarcLowe Of course there is a bitter irony here...the MHRA is facing a £15m shortfall because it is losing £ms of year in fees that it no longer collects as a result of #Brexit and the UK's departure from the European Medicines Agency (that went to Amsterdam) /13

@FinancialTimes @kipping_michael @SamuelMarcLowe As a result of losing the EU funding stream that came with fees from registering products for use in the EU, the MHRA is being sucked back into the budget of the Dept of Health which is adding financial pressure. /14

@FinancialTimes @kipping_michael @SamuelMarcLowe The Govt can argue that you can do "more with less" -- streamlining, IT investment etc -- but to a lot of people in the industry it is very hard to square the rhetoric of "build back better", "world-beating" "innovation" with savage cuts to one of our genuine world beaters! ENDS