Editor’s Letter

I hope that everyone is enjoying the arrival of spring, working from home or wherever you may be reading this spring edition. February saw World Cancer Day and there are some interesting developments into the diagnosis of bowel cancer. As Prof Johnson observes, "Every year in England, we diagnose around 42,000 people with bowel cancer; that's more than 100 people a day".

There is an exciting piece of technology called PillCams, created by Medtronic, which are cameras encased in a capsule to make them easier to ingest, and it is hoped they can replace more invasive methods of screening.

One of the positives to come out of COVID-19 is that this is accelerating the move to patientpowered medicine. Claus Moldrup at DrugStars explains that during the past 12 months, technology has changed healthcare’s ability to understand and treat patients. However, to really see this being sustainable and available to everyone in society, I do wonder if patients are going to be willing to pay more for their healthcare?

This also leads well into the futuristic world of AI drug delivery technology. Professor John Overington at Medicines Discovery Catapult, Tom Whitehead at Intellegens and Matt Segall at Optibrium tell us about how Innovate UK have funded projects in this area.

The Danes celebrate two things openly; their ranking as the happiest people on the planet, along with their acceptance of paying the highest income tax in the world. Rasmus BeedholmEbsen at Invest in Denmark analyses the Danish healthcare system, which offers unique possibilities for realising the potential of personalised medicine. But is this because they can afford it, and what can the rest of the world learn from this?

Our connected world also has its challenges, in terms of threats such as connectivity, cybersecurity and data security. Thomas Watts at Team Consulting explains how to ensure you are able to defend yourself and to ensure you are on the right path.

With the global world we live in, one of the challenges is to ensure that the medicines we are taking or given are the real thing. This is very much seen in the painkiller market. The global counterfeit drug detection devices market is set to surpass around US$1.5Bn by 2029. Jaleel Shujath at Absorption Systems tells us how the role of advanced technologies such as blockchain and artificial intelligence can help to overcome the challenges of supply chain fraud and theft. 2020 certainly brought the whole world to a stop, and this certainly has been felt in the clinical research sector as there was a 38% drop in new clinical trials started in 2020. Rich Quelch at Origin tells us how the life science sector will continue to drive changes in how clinical trials are conducted, and digitalisation will help this. I hope that we see a lot more being done in the area of reducing stress and anxiety for people needing to visit a hospital.

Richard Yeatman at IgniteData gives us his view about the expected digital trends in 2021, and how they are going to enable growth in the delivery of faster, better quality options, revolutionising how patients engage in and access their healthcare.

Welcome to the Spring issue of IPI. It has been a year since the first lockdown. A year of an enormous challenge to the pharmaceutical industry. Now, as vaccination campaigns gain speed and millions of people worldwide have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, cases and hospitalizations appear to be dropping.

Large swaths of the population might still become infected and develop minor disease or asymptomatic infections. That prospect worries some scientists and clinicians, who note that

George I’ons at Owen Mumford Pharmaceutical Services highlights there is a serious shortage of healthcare staff, which is why they have created a holistic service package that includes training and education around their medication. His focus is on the importance of how connected drug delivery could very much help with medication compliance and can improve therapy management.

One exciting enhancement of how patients can take their drugs is soft gel capsules technology. It has been around for over 80 years and has very much been used in the paediatric delivery of drugs. It looks like now they are going to get even more sustainable due to being plant-based. Steve Amoussou-Guenou at Roquette Pharma Solutions explains why this is going to be the preferred dosage form for manufacturers, consumers, and patients alike.

I hope you enjoy this addition of the magazine and that we are maybe able to start to look forward to being able to move around to see family and friends in the summer. I am wondering how people felt at the end of the Spanish flu, how did people get back to normal, and what can we learn from that time in history?

Lucy Robertshaw, CEO LucyJRobertshaw

even mild cases can lead to the “long COVID” phenomenon of lingering symptoms. Hospitals, though, will not become overwhelmed with emergency cases, and deaths will become increasingly rare.

Yet, there is growing recognition that even if widespread vaccination can’t halt the spread of the virus, it promises a major step back toward normal.

Please stay safe and well and I hope you enjoy the first issue of the journal for 2021.

Virginia Toteva, Editorial Manager – IPI

Editorial Advisory Board

Bakhyt Sarymsakova, Head of Department of International Cooperation, National Research, Center of MCH, Astana, Kazakhstan Catherine Lund, Vice Chairman, OnQ Consulting Deborah A. Komlos, Senior Medical & Regulatory Writer, Thomson Reuters Diana L. Anderson, Ph.D president and CEO of D. Anderson & Company Franz Buchholzer, Director Regulatory Operations worldwide, PharmaNet development Group Francis Crawley. Executive Director of the Good Clinical Practice Alliance – Europe (GCPA) and a World Health Organization (WHO) Expert in ethics

Rick Turner, Senior Scientific Director, Quintiles Cardiac Safety Services & Affiliate Clinical Associate Professor, University of Florida College of Pharmacy Georg Mathis Founder and Managing Director, Appletree AG Jagdish Unni, Vice President – Beroe Risk and Industry Delivery Lead – Healthcare, Beroe Inc. Jeffrey Litwin, M.D., F.A.C.C. Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of ERT

Jeffrey W. Sherman, Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President, IDM Pharma

Jim James DeSantihas, Chief Executive Officer, PharmaVigilant

Mark Goldberg, Chief Operating Officer, PAREXEL International Corporation Maha Al-Farhan, Chair of the GCC Chapter of the ACRP (Singapore, Shanghai) Steve Heath, Head of EMEA – Medidata Solutions, Inc

Patrice Hugo, Chief Scientific Officer, Clearstone Central Laboratories Heinrich Klech, Professor of Medicine, CEO and Executive Vice President, Vienna School of Clinical Research Robert Reekie, Snr. Executive Vice President Operations, Europe, Asia-Pacific at PharmaNet Development Group Sanjiv Kanwar, Managing Director, Polaris BioPharma Consulting Stefan Astrom, Founder and CEO of Astrom Research International HB T S Jaishankar, Managing Director, QUEST Life Sciences

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