A lot can go wrong when you’re moving house. With just over a year before Brexit – the UK’s formal split from the European Union – the European Medicines Agency is preparing to quit London for a new base. It is not shaping up to be a smooth process, and that’s a problem for everyone in Europe, including those in the UK.
In November, Amsterdam won a competitive process to host the agency, one of the EU’s most prestigious bodies. It employs 900 staff and regularly hosts hundreds more scientists.
But last week, the agency’s director Guido Rasi revealed a spanner in the works: its new base in the Netherlands . It will have to move twice – once, in January 2019, to temporary accommodation in Amsterdam and then, in the summer of 2019, to its intended base in a bespoke building. This would hit the agency’s capacity, Rasi has said.
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Cue the mayor of Milan, another candidate host city, who to get the decision to move to Amsterdam reviewed, using the unfinished building as evidence that the Dutch city is not a suitable location.
All this exacerbates what is already an untenable situation for European medical and drug research. The EMA checks the safety of drugs entering the European market and recommends or opposes their authorisation. Apart from these core duties, the agency monitors adverse reactions to drugs, sets industry standards and advises on the viability of new drug candidates. Many time-consuming and expensive research projects only go ahead with the agency’s green light.
Put on hold
There was always going to be some upheaval. A contingency plan drafted by the EMA shows that, even in the best scenario, it would only keep about 80 per cent of its London staff after the move. This will necessitate the temporary cessation of tasks including patient engagement, projects targeted at improving drugs for sub-sections of society – such as elderly people – and transparency.
The . If only about 50 per cent of staff are retained, science advisory services would cease until lost expertise can be replaced. The agency’s cries for help have largely fallen on deaf ears. Instead of offering additional experts, national governments are reluctant to move to Amsterdam.
While these scenarios look bad for the EU, they are even worse for the UK. Without a post-Brexit deal with the agency, British medical researchers would not know whether their drugs can get approval on European markets. They will lose out on the scientific heads-up provided by the agency, and on its insights into international drug development.
Broken links
The Bioindustry Association, a UK lobby group for pharmaceutical companies, has repeatedly urged the UK government to maintain all authorisations granted by the agency before Brexit, and work on a cooperation deal for British drugs afterwards.
Some 7 per cent of EMA staff are British and . These people are a crucial link between the agency and UK companies, scientists and politicians, which will be lost as well.
Instead of rushing to the agency’s aid, politicians have made it a pawn in their own games. This is terrible for medical science. Europe – and that includes the UK – has some of the most competitive, high-quality drug research in the world. The EMA’s work is crucial to making this happen.
British politicians should stop playing down its loss, and their European counterparts should work together to minimise disruption. The EMA’s health is vital for ours.
