Having spent fifteen years supporting cutting-edge biomedical research before coming to Parliament, I was one of the early evangelists for the new landscape of “translational” medical research. In labs, universities and hospitals, I saw the start of the shift from the one-size-fits-all model of blockbuster drug development, to the new age of personalised medicine, using the latest advances in genomics and informatics to enable us to better prescribe the right drugs to the right people, and better design drugs around our understanding of how and why different patients respond to drugs and disease in different ways. I could see that this was a revolution that would change all our lives, and allow us to export our knowledge around the world. And I knew the UK had the chance to lead the way.
That’s why I was so proud to be appointed by the Prime Minister to co-ordinate the first ever Life Sciences Industrial Strategy in 2011 setting out a vision of what could be achieved, and to be appointed the first ever Minister for Life Sciences in 2014 to make this vision a reality, with a multi-billion portfolio overseeing the NHS drugs budget, data and digital health, the NIHR, genomics, NICE and industry engagement.
