Thankfully, COVID lockdown restrictions are now easing. The number of daily COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the UK recently hit record highs. Over half of the adult population has now received at least one dose of a vaccine, and 2,228,772 people have been fully vaccinated.
While the UK health and life sciences sector has made considerable progress in battling COVID, the world is still very much amid the pandemic and the virus still represents a real and mutating threat to population health. Hence there’s considerable coverage in our reporting of this UK sector involving COVID and the AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccine, politicians weighing in on safety and efficacy; supply issues; prioritization of sequencing the virus; studies entailing challenge trials, vaccinating children and administering mixed vaccines; tackling the variants; and expanding testing.
In addition, the February 2021 edition of BELS Brief Clips includes about 70 further developments across the UK health and life sciences involving fundraisings, mergers, acquisitions, IPOs, drug approvals, assorted research efforts, progress in diagnostics and medtech, and more.
BELS works to strengthen connections to and awareness of the UK health and life sciences with British-educated life scientists and a broader international audience. Curating and distributing BELS Brief Clips is one part of this effort.
You can join BELS and subscribe to BELS Brief Clips here
Finally, we offer congratulations to BELS community member Dr Joanne “Jo” Viney (President, CSO and Co-Founder at Watertown, Massachusetts-based Pandion Therapeutics, which is now being acquired by Merck for $1.85-billion). Jo is among 20 outstanding women scientists featured in FiercePharma’s Fiercest Women in Life Sciences for 2020.
Nigel Gaymond
BELS Founder & Executive Chair
ngaymond@BELSconnector.org