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Kate Bingham

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39

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2021-01-08

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2021-01-08

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1. “House in the NHS, as well as the fact that we're able to with time and with the time we gave them to actually plan for deployment. So I think that science has worked out really well. I think other things have worked out well. We've got an established national clinical trials network through NIHR, which is effectively the research arm of the NHS. And again, that's played out really well. Novavax, one of our vaccines, was able to start and finish the phase three efficacy studies in the UK before they'd even started in the US. So that again just shows the nimbleness and the national nature of us being able to pull in volunteers all around the country is huge. And of course, we're very strong on the science. So the whole, if you look at the genomics consortium, the fact that the UK has actually sequenced more games than the rest of the world put together, again,”

   2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

2. “I think that's a really good question. And actually, you know what? I think the history and the people looking back when we look back at what the UK state has done is we're going to look very positive because having a single national healthcare system has meant that everybody has an NHS number and that means we've got electronic records for everybody. It means you know who they are. You've got their health histories and you can actually bring them together for vaccination. I'm talking to my colleagues in the US and I think the challenges of deployment of vaccination where you've got such a fragmented healthcare system where each state gets to decide how to deploy the vaccines individually is just completely impossible. So I think the UK is going to stand out very well in terms of both the trust that the UK public”

   2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

3. “EMA and other countries weren't able to do it. But it wasn't to do. The reason we did it was not because we're better. It was just that we were organized. And I think this is where the political joys that to bring in the private sector to create the vaccine task force was a good one because we were able to act quickly because that's how we work. So I literally would pick up the phone to the different companies at the top level and say we would like to whoever it is we'd like to talk to you about your vaccine. Can we explore your data and how we might be able to do deals? And I think it's very difficult for people without that Rolodex to be able to do that quickly.”

   2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

4. “EMA European Medicines Agency. So basically there was nothing that the MHRA did that other countries within the European Union could not have done themselves. So they just did it very well. They did it quickly and they launched this whole idea of a rolling submission, which meant that vaccine companies could actually share incomplete data with the regulator so that the MHRA in this case could actually start assessing it before it was finalized, which meant they got up to speed with the data they're able to poke and say, well, we want a bit more here or we've got questions about this. And so that, I think, was those rolling reviews were incredibly helpful. So Brexit had nothing to do with that. Others could have done it, but the MHRA did a very, very nice job. And also remember, the European Medicine Agency moved out of the UK. So the MHRA actually had the capacity to do this in ways possibly that...”

   2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

5. “Neither is. Well, neither is true. I mean, the MHRA approved the launch of the approval of BionTech under EMA law. There's nothing to stop the unregulated”

   2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

6. “So, I'm quite confident in the UK that all those that are defined in the top groups by JCVI actually down to all the over 50s, including those with underlying diseases, will be vaccinated by the second quarter of this year. So I think all those who are vulnerable who are at risk of infection, yes, we will be able to vaccinate this half of the year. And then it'll be up to the JCVI and the government to decide how much more broadly to vaccinate. So yes, do I think we'll be able to move more widely in the UK for sure? I think the question about summer holidays is how efficient are the other countries at doing the vaccination? And what we've seen so far in Europe has not been that strong, given that most people are going to go on holiday for France, Spain and Italy and so on. But I'd like to see the vaccinations on the continent improving because, again, that hasn't, they've not come out of the blocks quickly. And again,”

   2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

7. “I've had the odd call and I think it's a very difficult job for anybody dealing with this pandemic that is viral mutation continuing. But I am entirely confident of the work we've done and the contracts we've put in place and the supply that is coming to the UK. And I think it's really important that everyone just holds their nerve, stays indoors, doesn't do anything until those vaccines start rolling out.”

   2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

8. “I don't know. I mean, I don't think this is, it shouldn't be about spin. This should be about what are the objectives that we've been set, which is to get vaccines as soon as possible for the UK. And how are we performing against those objectives? So that's not about press officers and spin. It's about actually just facts. And as I look back at it, I'm pretty pleased. I mean, we're the first country to start Western country to start vaccination. We've got, I would say, probably the most promising vaccine portfolio of anywhere in the world. And we've got the long-term assets in place so that we're better prepared for next time. So that is the message that I think should be coming out, no matter who, whether it's press offices or otherwise. It's not a political messaging though.”

   2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

9. “Wouldn't have made any difference to me what was the colour of the government if I've been asked to step up and help in a national pandemic, it doesn't matter who asks me. The question is, can I do the job I've been asked to do and can I do it well? So yes, I think it can. Other people absolutely can do the same thing. I just think they need to have a bit of a political minder, which I don't think I had. So this all caught me by surprise, which I think you'd argue, well, shouldn't have done. But anyway, because I'm much more focused on.”

   2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

10. “So, one of the things we've put in place is to start to get better advanced manufacturing capabilities in the UK. So we've got VMic and what we call CGMic, both of which are still being upgraded and developed so that they'll be ready for manufacturing towards the end of next year. But the other aspect that we've also put in place is a market engagement for bulk antibody manufacturing. So at the moment, the UK has no ability to make bulk antibodies. And that's something which I think is a failure. It's not just relevant for prophylactic and therapeutic use for the treatment of COVID, but it's also broadly an incredibly important class of therapeutics where we have no ability to manufacture that. So that market engagement is underway now. And from a political perspective, and ultimately it'll be the politicians that decide, there is scope to build that factory with the private sector in the North England. So addressing the”

    2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

11. “For sure, because the state of the art bioprocessing manufacturing, whether it's making vaccines or therapeutics, there is an increasing need for these products to be made. So absolutely, I can see a continued partnership and I can see that the manufacturing scope of jobs is going to only grow. And I think it's a wonderful opportunity, part of the funding we put in place at the vaccine task force was specifically to help train people coming into the industry, whether coming from other industries or de novo into advanced manufacturing. And that is something that I think is going to be a huge potential opportunity both economically as well as for the pandemic preparedness for the UK.”

    2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

12. “Manufacture any kind of vaccine. And also we've done the same with clinical development. So we have set up the world's first national citizen registry. That's a big deal because typically in clinical trials, getting people enrolled in trials is the slow part. And having what's, you know, 380,000 people volunteered on our NHS registry now has enabled us to get those trials enrolled very quickly and get the data out quickly.”

    2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

13. “Yes, I mean, so zoonotic diseases have been with us since civilization began. But climate change and deforestation, we are enhancing the rate of zoonotic diseases spreading into humans. And so it's not only is it possible that this virus will mutate and move away from the actual vaccines we have, albeit I think it's unlikely to do so anytime. I think it's highly likely we're going to have pandemic viruses. And so one of the tasks that the Prime Minister set us was to really make sure that the UK was in a better position for pandemic preparedness than we are now. And actually, we've done lots of that. So we put in place capabilities for manufacturing so that we can manufacture at speed all kinds of different vaccines. We're not just limited to putting our chips on one type of format. We've specifically got state-of-the-art bioprocessing capabilities so that we can.”

    2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

14. “Israel's a small country. We have three devolved administrations plus England and we are large and diverse. I mean, if we were in a small country like Israel, I'm sure we'd be doing it just as quickly. But just let's look at the data as it comes through in the next few weeks. And I think, I hope we will see some really positive news”

    2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

15. “the pizza boxes are basically a dry run of how would deployment and the supply chain logistics work go shipping from the continent through to vaccinating in the uk so of course there may be things that go wrong but there's nothing that hasn't been assessed and challenged and and looked at so i don't have a single thing to say there's just one thing i'm worried about i think if anything there will be of course there will be some human errors there always is but it's not through lack of planning or lack of really competent thoughtful work ahead of time”

    2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

16. “Well, I mean, again, this is one of the things I've learned by having the military and the defense capabilities within my team is there was just relentless rehearsals and preparations and readiness reviews. And there's examples of shipping pizza boxes which would have pretended to contain the flies of Beyond Tech vaccine and do a basically a dry run of how would it go from end to end the full deployment and what are the holes.”

    2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

17. “So I think the target, the 13 million by the middle of February, is doable. So if you think about this, the different aspects of challenge, first was actually get the clinical trials enrolled quickly so you could get the data. The second, get through the regulatory approval. On the clinical side, and then in parallel, the whole manufacturing. So the manufacturing scale up has been highly complex because it's just been you're taking a 10 litre production and you're scaling that up to a thousand litres with mammalian cells. That is nonlinear and not straightforward. So once you've got to a routine manufacturing process at 1,000 litres, actually then it is much more about cranking the handle. But it's the process of that scale up that's so difficult and the process of doing the bat release and the testing and the quality that's difficult. So I don't worry actually too much now about”

    2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

18. “Well, no, actually asking questions, I think you're fine. And I think this is one of the whole area of vaccines per se is it is complex. And I think it does matter that people start to understand how they work, what they do, what the benefits are, how do you make them, all of that sort of thing. And actually, by and large, I think the science and medical journalists have been fantastic and have reported beautifully a very complicated area.”

    2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

19. “Manufacturing processes that would normally take years to scale up. And you're trying to do that in months so that you can end up with a consistent, safe batch is the same batch-to-batch to batch. When you're growing mammalian cells, it just doesn't work as smoothly as punching out 3D PPE equipment masks or whatever. So I think the wanting to get into the intricate detail by non-experts is not helpful and that's something that clearly dogs the government more generally. But what I've seen with it is then that means there's a reluctance to share information and then everyone thinks, well, he must be hiding secrets and it must mean you're not on top of it. And the fact, for example, that there are still debates about whether or not we have enough glass vials, I mean, they must have thought we're asleep at the wheel if we didn't have enough glass vials. So there are things like that.”

    2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

20. “Well, I'm not sure how much Enna about at the moment. I mean, what I've seen is astonishing work ethic since I took the role. I've never worked as hard ever. Evenings, weekends, I couldn't even get time to get cups of tea. And, you know, every so often someone would give me a bowl of Otolingi salad for lunch or whatever it may be. And so I think the pace of work is huge in government. And I'm very, very impressed by that. And I don't know if there's any question that there isn't very strong commitment to trying to do the right thing. I do think the constant media attacks is very difficult because it just means everything is put on what is, you know, what are we actually doing versus what can you tell everybody that we're doing? And it's coming up in vaccines now, which is what we want to know precisely the number of doses that are in the country. Well, the challenge is that this isn't precise. If you're compressing, in our case,”

    2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

21. “I think Dad would turn in his grave if he thought that you were suggesting that the judges were political because he absolutely was not political. In fact, I've never known what he voted. So he absolutely was never political. He was obviously very motivated by public service. But actually that's not been my really interested in turning clever science into drugs. I mean, I wake up in the morning and my day starts with talking to the cleverest, most amazing professors to figure out how can we turn their ideas into new drugs in order to save patients' lives. I mean, what's not to like? It's completely fantastic. And, you know, I've got an office where we've got plenty of women, so I'm able to bring in women in a way that I can actually influence. It's fantastic. So why would I get into politics and do all this stuff? I'm delighted people do it, but that's just not me.”

    2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

22. “I mean, obviously, it depends on the individual and what the question is. But if I was asked to do this again knowing what I know now, I would do it. I mean, there are certainly some lessons I've learned, which are largely around the political management. So one thing is, in hindsight, I think we should have done cross-party briefings. So I think a lot of this was to do with the lack of understanding of what exactly we were doing and who we were. And precisely the questions you're asking, why was I chosen? Actually, I think it would be helpful for people to know and then they can make a judgment about whether or not my background was the right background or not. I do not shy away from any level of scrutiny because my entire career has been on the back of performance and judgment based on performance.”

    2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

23. “I think it goes both ways, actually. So I'm not sure it's necessarily sexist. But again, I don't attribute it to sexism. Again, I think it's helpful being a woman in many ways because we just get on with it and I don't have a testosterone kick that needs to prove that I'm better than other people. If I've been asked to do a piece of work, I will just get on and do the piece of work.”

    2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

24. “Yes, I'm quite sure that's why I came for me. But again, I think it's an outrage that the politics of my husband should be applied to me. I'm very clearly non-political and I'm not a member of any political party. And it is outrageous that people should assume that I think the same as my husband.”

    2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

25. “True. I was doorstep by cameraman. I mean, it's not a fun place to be. But had I thought any of this was legit, then maybe there's a reason for the press to continue. What I found frustrating is the fact that the headlines continued without any reference to the actual fact. And that is not a good thing. And I know we have an adversarial political system, but this is not a political activity. This is an activity that is to try and save not just lives in the UK, but globally. And why people should have a go at me. I have just simply no idea.”

    2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

26. “I have no idea, but I mean, I think one of the reasons why we were effective in the vaccine task force is precisely because actually I have no idea how government works. So that meant actually the recommendations and the plans of what we put in place wasn't in any way constrained by the normal processes of government. What we were able to do was to put in place, I think, a very effective team and decision-making process that actually enabled us to act quickly and with the expertise. I'm sure I trembled on lots of people's toes, but I think had I not done that, we may not well have been as effective as we were.”

    2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

27. “Complete shock and outrage that anybody should start violing these false allegations on the basis of no fact. So I was incredibly cross. I was incredibly frustrated. I was hurt. I mean, it's impossible not to be personally affected by what people say, especially given that the way the government Comms works is that I'm not allowed to respond. So any communications actually has to be approved by both bases, Department of Business as well as number 10. So I was basically unable to respond directly. So the government would respond on my behalf. And very distracting. So the advice I had, which I thank those people who've helped me, was take your ego out of it, focus on what you're doing, and just rise above it. And that's what I did. And actually now I can look back on that and actually it's just fine. It's just unfortunate that we have to go through this politically.”

    2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

28. “Yes, but I think we need to ultimately engineer these vaccines so it becomes, if it's something that we need to vaccinate routinely, we need to get these vaccines so that there is routine as a flu shot. And at the same time cost as a flu shot. And I don't think there's any reason why that can't happen.”

    2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

29. “Yes, I understand why there are the suspicions, but I disagree with them. So first of all, if you look at what industry has done, it is the collaboration between academics and the private sector with governments around the world that is actually getting us out of this pandemic. So science and the capability of our sector has been absolutely phenomenal and the speed at which it's worked and the generosity and the commitment and the compassion of which these different groups have worked together, I think has been great. And it is again not widely broadcast, but most of the pharmaceutical companies are working on non-profit basis. So none of them are seeking to profiteer from this pandemic. They are working collaboratively in order to get the best vaccines and also therapeutics to the world as quickly as possible so that we can bring the pandemic to an end.”

    2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

30. “That's exactly right. So there's broadly four types of vaccine. And so those were the four that we then pursued. And we then looked for the most promising vaccines within each type of vaccine. And also, we also spoke to JCVI, which is the vaccine expert group that advises the government because, again, we didn't know who they were likely to recommend should be vaccinated. And so that was obviously a key part was how much and for whom.”

    2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

31. “Well, you're quite right. I mean, going back to May, the landscape we were looking at was that there had been complete failure to ever develop any vaccine for any human coronavirus. So we'd had SARS 1 and MERS, and attempts had been made at that point to develop vaccines. Those had not succeeded. So we had no template and no basis on which to actually start. So the answer was we had to take a pragmatic view and build a portfolio of vaccines across the different types of vaccines. So there are different ways of stimulating an immune response. And that's what we went about doing.”

    2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

32. “He asked me what I thought it would cost. And to be honest, I had no idea what it was going to cost initially because I hadn't done any work to explore it. But it was very clear that the emphasis was about actually getting vaccines as soon as possible for the UK. And it wasn't about trying to penny pinch. Equally, our vaccines have ended up about £10 a dose. So they're not horrendously expensive. But the emphasis, quite rightly, was on getting people vaccinated and saving lives and not a cost basis.”

    2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

33. “Exactly. So I had to go to my investors and say, you've just given us money for our new fund called the Impact Medicine Fund, which is about new drugs. And yet I now want to take a lever absence for six months. So that was certainly a concern to me, but fortunately they said yes.”

    2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

34. “You gave me a pep talk quite rightly, actually, because I've given her plenty of pep talks on exactly the same topic about don't do yourself down. And it is something, I'm afraid, to say that is a female characteristic. So the main thing was, you know, ultimately you are asked to step up and do your duty at a time of a national pandemic. And I think it would be a callous person who thinks they're capable of doing the job to then turn that down. But I had reservations. I felt very concerned about what would happen to my colleagues at SV, the investors who just committed to the new fund.”

    2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

35. “Well, it took 24 hours before I was persuaded myself. I mean, I started off with a classic, and I'm afraid to admit, imposter syndrome as a woman. So my first reaction was, well, I'm not qualified to do the job. And then when I got told off by my daughter, I then, as she spent some time talking to the experts who actually had work with government, who'd worked in the private sector to basically really make sure that if I took it on, I would be able to do a good job.”

    2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

36. “It's absolutely true, and it remains true. So my expertise is around therapeutics and the distinction is that therapeutics are actually treating patients who have disease. Whereas with vaccines, you're treating healthy people to prevent them from getting a disease.”

    2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

37. “I absolutely fell off the chair and after I had picked myself off the floor, also asking that same question. And it took me some time to actually agree to take on the role. But basically, my career has been the last 30 years I've been turning science into new drugs. So I'm a biochemist and I understand the whole process of clinical trials through clinical regulatory manufacturing, the whole scheme of how do you actually turn novel insights into drugs. is something I do understand. And of course, I've been a longtime advisor to various aspects of government. I'm on the government's life science industrial strategy board and actually most recently Patrick Balance asked me to join the expert advisory board for vaccines.”

    2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

38. “Oh, I have no worries at all about the team. The team is one of the most spectacularly capable teams I've ever had the pleasure of working with. The vaccine task force is going to go from strength to strength. It's under now the leadership of Clive Dix, who's brilliant. So I don't have any worries about a go forward team.”

    2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

39. “Well, I have to say, I'm feeling incredibly proud and happy and pleased with what the team has been able to accomplish. My mum got her appointment through today, 81-year-old mother, and just delighted that both she plus the millions of people around the country who have and are shortly going to be vaccinated is just an amazing, amazing feeling.”

    2021-01-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Kate Bingham One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source