Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government had made clear our commitment to supporting Gillian Mackay MSP on her Abortion Services Safe Access Zones (Scotland) Bill. The First Minister and I met Ms Mackay to reaffirm that commitment during the First Minister’s first week in office.

I meet regularly with Ms Mackay to discuss the Bill, and to offer support and input at each stage of the process, most recently the publication of the consultation analysis and final Bill proposal. This support will continue as the Bill is introduced to, and progresses through, Parliament.

The pharmaceuticals sector plays a crucial role in the growth and development of the life sciences sector and as a result is a key contributor to the growth and development of the Scottish economy.

The manufacturing of pharmaceuticals sector is an important source of entrepreneurial activity, supporting GVA and employment throughout Scotland. The pharmaceuticals sector is a key driver of innovation and productivity in the economy with a GVA per head of employment of £200,700 in 2020, more than 3 times the Scottish average.

Scotland’s National Innovation Strategy was published on 6 June 2023 and it identifies a number of key areas where Scotland has a competitive advantage and a strong research and business base. Health & Life Sciences is one of these areas and one of four broad innovation themes on which future activity will focus. The Scottish Government is fully committed to supporting the further growth and scaling of one of the biggest life sciences clusters in Europe and the pharmaceutical industry will play a crucial part in the sector’s development of world leading excellence, bringing in investment and creating jobs and opportunities across the country.

The Scottish Government's recently published National Innovation Strategy identifies Scotland's Health and Life Sciences sector as an innovation priority area, and outlines a tailored cluster approach to each of the innovation priority areas in order to scale innovative activity to drive economic outcomes, attract additional investment and elevate Scotland's impact on a global stage. The National Innovation Strategy further outlines encouragement and support for the breadth of Scotland's businesses to innovate, helping our business base to adopt the innovative technologies and processes that will help increase their resilience and capacity for growth. The Standing Committee on Pandemic Preparedness has also underlined the importance of continued support for innovation in life sciences and public health research in its Interim Report, published in August 2022. A strong and resilient life sciences sector, with highly innovative clusters involving our business and research base, will help Scotland be able to respond to upcoming challenges including any potential future pandemics.

As our spring campaign officially ended on 30 June, the level of stock held in Scotland is minimal, after a programme where we delivered over 490,000 doses. The number of doses currently held by NHS Scotland is calculated to be around 96,000.

In addition there remains residual stock allocated to Scotland within the ownership of UKHSA (UK Health Security Agency) that has not been drawn down by NHS Scotland health boards.

The Scottish Government engages with the pharmaceutical industry directly as well as via the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, and through Four Nations partners as part of UK-wide pandemic preparedness and resilience measures. This has ranged from long-standing arrangements to build and maintain stockpiles of medicines to address challenges from potential influenza pandemics to more recent measures to establish stockpiles of medicines and associated consumables for the response to COVID-19. Collaborative working across the UK also includes working in partnership with the pharmaceutical industry to develop onshore vaccine manufacturing capacity, with potential for pandemic deployment.

The pharmaceutical industry continues to successfully support pandemic preparedness and resilience in Scotland, as described in the answer to question S6W-19343 on 11 July 2023.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The Scottish Government recognises that the ability to attract and deliver innovative clinical research studies is vital to improving healthcare and patient outcomes. We therefore welcome Lord O’Shaughnessy’s review into commercial clinical trials in the UK. We will engage with partners across the UK in the coming weeks to understand how we can work together to ensure the review’s recommendations are considered for Scotland.

Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office is fully engaged with UK partners, including the MHRA, on improving the clinical trials system across the UK. In addition to facilitating inputs from across the Scottish clinical research community to the MHRA’s recent public consultation on clinical trials legislation, officials are engaging regularly through cross-UK fora with MHRA and other UK partners to ensure that any updated regulations and their supporting guidance work well for Scotland, and as part of a streamlined, efficient, and innovative UK-wide clinical trials system.

The Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office invests through NHS Research Scotland in the Scottish Health Research Register and Biobank (SHARE) to support the recruitment of people into health research studies and clinical trials. SHARE is an expanding register of over 300,000 people who have expressed an interest in participating in health research and have agreed to be contacted about studies to which they might be suited.

Data produced by SHARE shows ethnic and socioeconomic distributions supportive of inclusive recruitment to health research studies. CSO is also funding an ongoing project by the University of Aberdeen looking at ways to improve ethnic diversity in clinical trials and to help trial teams recruit and retain ethnic groups in studies.

In addition, In February 2023, the Scottish Government published an independent report on Equity of Access to Cancer Clinical Trials in Scotland. The report contains 51 recommendations, with an Implementation Board established to prioritise these and develop an implementation strategy. While the report focuses on cancer clinical trials, many of the recommendations are relevant across the clinical spectrum.

Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office engages regularly with UK Government and agencies directly, and through cross-UK fora, on streamlining the clinical trials system across the UK. These discussions cover a range of topics, recently including post-pandemic growth, clinical trial regulations, research ethics review, and commercial trial costing and contracting – where Scotland’s already existing single price model for commercial research is informing work to realise a streamlined, standardised, UK approach.