Catapulted into a national crisis, Bingham’s eclectic team secured the first vaccine doses administered in the West and saved thousands of lives in the UK as new variants struck. Kate Bingham’s new book, The Long Shot , is a gripping account of the UK Government Vaccine Task Force’s response to the pandemic by a remarkable, determined, thoughtful, and practical individual who was at the heart of the critical decisions that had to be made. The author warns that information spinners are a vast workforce in Whitehall; they are numerous and expensive and an absolute drag on efficiency and exist to spread misinformation if that suits the political purposes of the departments in which they reside. SV’s investments have led to the launch of twenty drugs for inflammatory and autoimmune disease, blindness and cancer.

Catapulted into an international crisis, Kate Bingham knew the odds were heavily stacked against a workable Covid-19 vaccine. Political manoeuvring, miscommunications and administrative meddling nearly jeopardised the project. The book describes how by adopting venture capitalist-style development contract writing and risk management and by making Britain especially attractive for vaccine trials (the NHS Registry was crucial here), Britain was able to steal a march on the US and the lumbering EU Commission in securing under contract the necessary production facilities.

These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. Catapulted into a national crisis, Bingham's eclectic team secured the first vaccine doses administered in the West and saved thousands of lives in the UK as new variants struck. From a small cottage, Bingham juggled vaccine suppliers, Whitehall, the media circus – and her daughter’s exams. At SV, Kate co-manages a number of global biotech venture funds which make investments into innovative companies developing novel therapeutics and she helped launch the Dementia Discovery Fund.

Good on her - success is not just about creating high performance teams, it is also about identifying and addressing hypocrisy and poor performance, and ultimately punishing failure.The author proceeds will be donated to the new university The New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering (NMITE) and early years education, development and advocacy charity Kindred Squared.

I fear it's impossible to reconcile the needs of government - paralysis inducing transparency, accountability and risk reduction - with private sector practice, which has similar needs but somehow much less paralysing. It appears that the Government has lost interest in both vaccines and pandemic preparedness, but it is also an example of the usual story of Government not learning from its mistakes.We are experiencing delays with deliveries to many countries, but in most cases local services have now resumed. In other words, it's not possible to even get to the starting block in the process of fixing a problem. He was a lecturer in Politics at Oxford University 1989–96, specialising in American and British Government. I spoke with her frequently through 2020 as we battled logistical headwinds and the media storms in development of the Oxford vaccine and was always better for our chats, absorbing the positive energy that she emanates and benefiting from her wisdom. Kate Bingham’s new book, The Long Shot, is a gripping account of the UK Government Vaccine Task Force’s response to the pandemic by a remarkable, determined, thoughtful, and practical individual who was at the heart of the critical decisions that had to be made.

Of course, having a working vaccine is only part of the story, it also has to be manufactured and administered which presented their own challenges as described by Bingham. nearly complete absence in the civil service of scientific, industrial, commercial and manufacturing skills'. The book warns this kind of success is not likely to be repeated without mass production facilities in Britain. Matt Hancock eventually recognises that the Department of Health was not up to the job of hosting the Vaccine Task Force; Michael Gove appears (surprisingly) as a more results-orientated minister than a spin-orientated minister. From a remote cottage, Bingham juggled vaccine suppliers, Whitehall, the media circus… as deaths mounted and the world shut down.Now nearly every adult in Britain has had a jab, lockdowns have ended and we can finally live with Covid. On 3 April 2020, Kate Bingham was told that the likelihood of any Covid-19 vaccine working was 15% at best. From a cottage miles away from Westminster, Bingham juggled vaccine suppliers, Whitehall, the media circus – and her daughter’s exams. Interesting insider insights contained in the book are: Boris Johnson, Matt Hancock and Michael Gove do not come off badly in this book.