LAUSR

Following last week’s snubbing of the UK Government’s proposed Brexit plan by European Union (EU) leaders in Salzburg, anxiety continues to escalate around a potential no deal scenario. With just over 180 days until the UK exits the EU, several crisis scenarios are being played out to pre-empt possible food and medicine shortages, taking into account possible space constraints and security meltdowns. But healthcare, pharmaceutical, and life sciences leaders continue to express concern about what the future could hold— deal or no deal. “Hope for the best, but plan for the worst”, says Niall Dickson, co-chair of the Brexit Health Alliance, an organisation that aims to safeguard the interests of patients, health care, and research during negotiations around the UK’s exit. “The short-term question is getting over the end of March next year, but the bigger question is with the longerterm consequences, especially if there is no deal.” Uncertainty is writ large over how relations between the UK and EU will fare after March, 2019. But across pharma and the life sciences there is an overall sense of unity. Mike Thompson is chief executive of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, which represents the interest of British pharma. He is encouraged by negotiations to date. “I have not heard one discordant voice from the life sciences ecosystem across Europe. The industry is unique as a sector in asking with one voice, representing both negotiating parties, saying that we want to stay working together.” In preparation for no deal and the concerns around a potential medicines shortage, the UK Government has produced technical notes to guide the pharmaceutical industry, National Health Service (NHS) organisations, general practitioners, and pharmacies. Hugo Fry is the UK managing director of Sanofi, the French pharmaceutical company that started preparing for Brexit in March, 2017. “We are doing everything we can to mitigate this risk. For the NHS, patients, and pharmacies, it is business as usual as far as Sanofi medicines go. We will absorb the necessary financial pain on this one, which we are happy to do”, he says.