The Academy of Medical Sciences' 12th FORUM Annual Lecture, 'Horizon scanning: looking ahead to 2025', took place on 27 March at the Royal Academy of Engineering. This year provided a unique opportunity to fuse perspectives from academia, industry, the NHS and regulators: for the first time in the history of the FORUM lectures, a panel of speakers was convened to discuss the key challenges and opportunities facing biomedical research across the healthcare sectors.
Sitting on the panel were Sir Gordon Duff FRSE FMedSci (Chairman, Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency), Professor Sir Malcolm Grant CBE (Chair, NHS England), Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell FRS FMedSci (President and Vice-Chancellor, University of Manchester), and Professor Patrick Vallance FMedSci (President, Pharmaceuticals R&D, GSK).
Watch the talks on our Youtube channel.
The panel session and lively discussion that followed offered the opportunity to debate wide-ranging themes including: changes in the healthcare landscape and enhanced collaboration between sectors, new modes of developing drugs and devices, flexibility of the regulatory framework, opportunities offered by the use of data, the importance of addressing health behaviours, and the centrality of patients and the public.
The latter point, and in particular the need to ensure clear communication with the public, was recognised from across the sectors. It will be increasingly important to explain how public money is spent on research to improve health and well-being, how research and patient participation in clinical trials is helping develop new therapies, and how sharing information about patient care can help improve healthcare services for all.
With the advent of new technologies and widespread use of the internet, patients are likely to be better informed and empowered with regards to their healthcare decisions. This will fundamentally change relationships not only with GPs but also with the research community. Healthcare apps have the potential to aid in the development of new therapies and in the prevention of disease by providing better monitoring at the point of care, allowing intervention at early stages of disease manifestation, and better informing clinical trials. Such technology will be instrumental in moving healthcare out of hospitals and into the community to respond to changing patients’ needs.
It was also anticipated that in terms of treatment, a shift would occur from the traditional small molecule blockbuster drug to more precise treatments, including antibody, antisense and gene therapies, targeted towards more specific patient populations. The access to such therapies is already in the process of changing with the Early Access to Medicines Scheme and adaptive licensing pilot project. Such programmes have the potential to revolutionise access to novel therapies, although at present it is hard to predict whether the future innovation model will see a greater shift to more rigorous assessment with later access to treatments or earlier access with ongoing data collection.
Changes in approval systems will be necessary to face the unprecedented rate of scientific development, driven by big data analysis, breakthroughs in stem cell and genetic therapies, and advances in new types of products such as devices and materials. In the future, regulators will need to work with medicine and device developers and act as facilitators of new medicines rather than being perceived as an impenetrable “iron fist” of regulation.
The blurring of boundaries across sectors, disciplines and geography also featured highly. It was anticipated by the panel that future biomedical problems, being too complex in nature to be solved by one individual or sector alone, will likely demand cross-disciplinary teams. Movement from one healthcare sector to another will be important to better drive innovation and foster a culture of openness.
Future successes in healthcare will be dependent on combining the strengths from academia, industry and the NHS, with support from the regulatory authorities. The UK is in a strong position, with world-class facilities and teaching, excellent funding streams, a valuable pharmaceutical sector, and the NHS, to lead research and its translation towards 2025 and beyond.
Catch up on the Twitter discussion accompanying the lecture.
FORUM: Horizon scanning: looking ahead to 2025