Stop, collaborate and listen
In his editor's letter, Ian Bolland writes about the increased importance of collaboration in order to produce the innovations required.
All being well, by the time you read this we should be looking forward to shaking off the shackles of restrictions and getting something very close to normality. Obviously, the pandemic will have had a lasting change on many sectors of the economy, including life sciences. However, given the data that we’ve seen about the Indian variant of the virus, and the sign of cases beginning to rise again, I’m not embracing the optimism of “freedom” just yet, and it wouldn’t surprise me if there is a delay to further unlocking.
I promised myself that I would try and stay away from the politics that is quite hard to avoid during this pandemic, but after a certain infamous and incendiary select committee testimony at the House of Commons, it actually emphasises the point that I wanted to make.
The picture painted by this individual is an example of what happens when you’ve got certain egos and those with a sense of trumped-up importance all pulling in different directions. Identifying people’s strengths and working towards a common goal has been the reason the vaccine roll-out is going as well as it is. The other side of the coin, rats in a sack squabbling can have some tragic knock-on effects.
Since the pandemic began I’ve had the pleasure of conducting numerous interviews for our website, magazine and The MedTalk Podcast, as well as being able to attend the odd virtual event, and one word keeps cropping up: collaboration.
The last 15 months or so has perhaps seem some unlikely bedfellows in attempt to upscale the manufacture of vital equipment the front-line to combat a deadly disease, new partnerships forged as different business from outside the sector have been looking to make their mark, new start-ups have brought ideas to the table and some competitors have teamed up for the common good. Possibly, the most extraordinary example of this during the pandemic has been to see the U.S government grant a patent waiver when it comes to vaccines in order to increase global production. It remains to be seen whether it will be implemented, and what the consequences are for drug developers – though the consequences could be seismic.
But this isn’t a call for people to surrender secrets that are the foundations of their business and what has enabled them to upscale life-saving treatments. Transparency about what firms are trying to achieve and the ability to identify weaknesses or gaps in knowledge in order to accelerate a good idea to market should be a pretty obvious move.
But it seems that as well as accelerating certain trends in the space going forward, it has also accelerated an urgency in putting people and businesses in touch with one another for their own good.
The collaboration also has to come from government too. As Lord Bethell pointed out in his address to The Health Tech Alliance’s Parliament and HealthTech event, he highlights that the digital infrastructure in place now compared to 20 years ago meant that we were better prepared to combat a pandemic – which given it has claimed in excess of 127,000 lives in the UK, one dreads to think where we would be otherwise.
That requires collaboration, and it was the buzzword that followed in a panel session. Whether that was interoperability of technologies or ensuring that the workforce is aided, whether that has technological involvement or not.
The pandemic has provided an opportunity for all of those involved in the sector to identify and refine the way they work and wonder what’s missing.
The desire to find out ways to work together should be one key element we build on from this tragic period. Pooling the best minds, even if once thought of as competitors, can produce individual and collective good. From my standpoint, there can only be winners from this approach, not losers.