Please find attached  and below some further information regarding export health certificates from the Office for Life Sciences As of 3 March 2021, following the meeting of the EU-UK Joint Committee on 24 February, the UK has unilaterally extended the grace period for Authorised Traders moving agri-food goods from Great Britain (GB) to NI through the continuation of the Scheme for Temporary Agri-food Movements to Northern Ireland (STAMNI). As a temporary operational easement, this exte...

Press Release - BIVDA Comments on Budget 2021 support for life sciences  BIVDA, the trade association for British in-vitro diagnostic companies, has commented on today’s Budget announcements, outlined in the House of Commons by Chancellor Rishi Sunak.  The British IVD industry is a growing and innovative part of our economy. This Budget, coming as the health service and our economy begin to recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, offers an opportunity to ensure the IVD...

Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) will be offered management training opportunities as part of today’s Government Budget. The Treasury has decided to further investment in SME management development in the UK by unveiling this £520m plan to spur innovation and growth in various sectors. Managers will be offered the chance to follow an MBA-style management training course to develop their skills and managerial knowledge. The ‘help to grow’ programme could benefit u...

New England Biolabs® Introduces ARTIC Products for SARS-CoV-2 Sequencing New kits improve upon well-established ARTIC protocols for SARS-CoV-2 genome sequencing with optimized reagents and improved uniformity of coverage depth for Illumina® and Oxford Nanopore Technologies® next generation sequencing (NGS) platforms IPSWICH, Mass, February 25, 2021 — New England Biolabs (NEB®) today released three kits based on the ARTIC Network protocols ...

BIVDA calls for a diagnostics industry of ‘critical mass’ to help fight future health challenges  BIVDA, the trade association for British in-vitro diagnostic companies, has submitted a response to the Government’s new Innovation Taskforce, set up by the Prime Minister to identify and develop proposals across a range of areas that will drive innovation and competitiveness, reduce barriers to start-ups and scale-ups, create opportunities for innovation to make the most of c...

Edinburgh Airport will be the location of a new rapid COVID-19 testing trial to understand the dynamics of an on-site airport testing programme which benefits staff members and air passengers. The trial will be run by the PocDoc and BioSure companies and will involve the use of the KnowNow saliva antigen test. Staff and volunteers will make up the cohort of participants, due to low passenger numbers at the airport owing to current air travel restrictions. The trial will last one week and will sh...

Please see a note below from the MDCC they have asked us to share with members.From 28th February there will be changes to TSS processes that affect movements of controlled goods. These changes relate to the data submitted to TSS to create a Simplified Frontier Declaration (SFD), which is then submitted to HMRC’s Customs Declaration Service. Most controlled goods require a form of licence, certificate or authorisation and these are obtained by the government department who governs control ...

Heavy-goods vehicle (HGV) drivers are being reminded by Government to carry out a COVID-19 test away from port locations at one of the 37 testing sites available. 235,000 tests have been carried out since the French Government altered requirements around COVID-19 testing due to concerns over mutant strains which were beginning to emerge. As a result of testing levels, vital goods continue to flow into the UK and HGV traffic in Kent is back to normal levels.  The testing requirements risked sus...

NHSX has announced a simpler, faster process for the assessment of digital health technologies which will allow for faster and smoother uptake of these digital tools for use by patients. NHSX unveiled the new system which will be utilised for NHS and social care services, it is titled the Digital Technology Assessment Criteria (DTAC). DTAC can be completed in days and will provide the public and NHS staff with confidence in the evaluation and safety checks of digital health tools such as health ...

NHSEI SBRI Healthcare grant for Psyros’ rapid, ultra-sensitive test for heart attack marker Firm raising £2.5m seed round to support further development of prototypeDiscovery Park, Sandwich, UK, February 24 2021 – Psyros Diagnostics, which is developing ultra-sensitive, ultra-fast, point of care diagnostics based on single molecule counting, has been awarded a £99,400 grant by NHSEI SBRI Healthcare1 to advance their novel test for the heart attack marker troponin. Ps...