The healthcare delivery landscape in the UK is transforming with the rise of prescribing pharmacists. Pharmacists have seen an evolvement with their role in the last decade with respect to supporting patients, NHS initiatives, and creating quicker access to care. We are now seeing them play an increasingly active part in patient care, obtaining prescribing rights, and advising on vital preventative medicine routes. All over the UK, demand for accessible and cost-effective healthcare services continues to rise, with resources stretched as we recover from the pandemic and the knock-on effect it ..read more

As we look ahead to 2028, a confluence of factors will position Europe to play a decisive role in shaping the future of global healthcare. From policy leadership to research and development prowess, Europe’s impact will be felt across many dimensions. Policy and regulatory harmonisation One of the key drivers will be Europe’s continued push for harmonisation of healthcare policies and regulations across the EU member states. Initiatives like the European Health Data Space aim to create a single market for digital health services and products by 2028. This will facilitate cross-border healthcar ..read more

The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) has published an executive summary1 of its consultation response to the government’s proposed changes to the Statutory Scheme for branded medicines2. In its response, the ABPI acknowledged and broadly supported the government’s intention to bring the Statutory Scheme into alignment with the new Voluntary Scheme for Pricing Access and Growth (VPAG), which was agreed with the industry at the end of last year. However, the industry also expressed reservations about many of the specific proposals in the consultation, some of which remai ..read more

A final draft guidance published by The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has recommended atogepant, the first of a new type of oral treatment option for preventing both chronic and episodic migraines. This news opens the way for up to 170,000 people to choose it on the NHS in England. Also called Aquipta and made by AbbVie, the treatment can be used as an option for preventing chronic and episodic migraines in adults who have had at least four migraine days per month and where at least three previous preventive treatments have failed. Migraines affect around 4.5 mi ..read more

The European Commission (EC) has approved a Type II variation for CARVYKTI®▼ (ciltacabtagene autoleucel; cilta-cel) for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM), who have received at least one prior therapy, including an immunomodulatory agent (IMiD) and a proteasome inhibitor (PI) and have demonstrated disease progression on the last therapy, and are refractory to lenalidomide.1 Cilta-cel is an innovative chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy directed against B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA), a protein that is highly expressed on myeloma ..read more

Scientists have discovered a breakthrough that could potentially lead to the development of selective HDAC inhibitors designed to treat types of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease and other inflammatory diseases. Mount Sinai researchers found the biological mechanisms by which a family of proteins known as histone deacetylases (HDACs) activate immune system cells linked to IBD. The team focused specifically on class IIa HDACs, which exhibit more tissue-specific functions than class I HDACs, which act more broadly. As an aspect of their investigation ..read more

A promising treatment strategy for an aggressive type of leukaemia – acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) – through targeting the enzymes that cells normally use to sense and adapt to changing oxygen levels, has been uncovered. Researchers have found that blocking oxygen-sensing enzymes can significantly halt acute myeloid leukaemia in mice and patient samples without affecting normal production of blood cells. The enzymes can already be blocked safely with existing drugs used to treat anaemia, so the researchers hope to see their findings translated to clinical trials for leukaemia. The team has al ..read more

A new cancer cell discovery into how skin cancer cells shapeshift based on their environment could offer potential new drug targets to stop skin cancer from metastasising. Scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, uncovered how cells know what environment they are in and therefore which shape to choose. Working in collaboration with researchers at Imperial College London, the team have developed a new system to study cells in 3D – mimicking different parts of the body. Until now, most research has studied cells on hard 2D plastic surfaces. A unique microscope called stage-scannin ..read more

In a new landmark licensing agreement towards addressing the challenge of Meningitis-B, the University of Oxford and Serum Institute of India Pvt. Ltd (SIIPL) have formalised a Licence of Technology Agreement negotiated by Oxford University Innovation, delivering lifesaving protection against Meningitis-B through the production of a chimeric protein-based vaccine. After five years of work, SIIPL and the Oxford team, led by Professor Christoph Tang, at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology have formulated a quadrivalent vaccine consisting of four chimeric proteins to tackle Men-B. Preliminar ..read more

The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) has accepted Idorsia UK Ltd’s drug, QUVIVIQ▼ (daridorexant), for restricted use within NHS Scotland. The drug will be used for the treatment of adult patients with insomnia characterised by symptoms present for at least three months and considerable impact on daytime functioning, who have failed cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) or for whom CBT-I is unsuitable or unavailable.1 Following this decision, daridorexant will become the first dual orexin receptor antagonist (DORA) available for NHS patients living with chronic insomnia in Scotl ..read more