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Industry welcomes boost to health research in UK budget

Groups representing the biopharma industry have welcomed an increase in health-specific R&D to £5 billion in the UK
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Groups representing the biopharma industry have welcomed an increase in health-specific R&D to £5 billion in the UK autumn budget, despite a longer timeline for reaching the target of £22 billion in overall R&D spending.

The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) and BioIndustry Association (BIA) both said that the increase acknowledges the enormous contribution made by the life sciences sector in helping to limit the impact of the pandemic through the rapid development of diagnostics, drugs and vaccines.

The £22 billion total will now be reached by 2026/27 – two years later than originally proposed – with £20 billion now the target for 2024/25 when £5 billion will be earmarked for health research.

Health funding includes £354 million for life sciences manufacturing and £95 million for the drive by the Office of Life Sciences to tackle cancer, obesity and mental health, and examine ways to make sure the NHS can access new technologies.

The ABPI and BIA have also welcomed an extension of R&D tax relief to include data and cloud computing, pointing out these technologies have become essential for life science firms discovering and developing new therapies for patients.

Another highlight is an increase in the budget of Innovate UK to more than £1 billion by 2024. That will allow UK research and Innovation (UKRI) to renew the Biomedical Catalyst (BMC) programme – which provides funding to help businesses test and develop innovative health and care projects.

The industry organisations also hailed the provision of capital grants for advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing, saying this will help to  boost the attractiveness of the UK and encourage private sector investment.

The ABPI added the new measures will be well received by its members, but warned that it would still like clarity on how the government will fund institutions like medicines regulator MHRA and cost-effectiveness watchdog NICE in future.

Tax relief scheme in focus

The BIA meanwhile acknowledged Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s willingness to look at how R&D is supported in the tax relief regime, noting that has enabled UK companies to develop therapies for rare diseases, attracted significant inward investment and retain intellectual property in the UK.

In the coming consultation of legislative change, the BIA has said it will argue that rather than removing tax relief on R&D, the government should focus on reducing fraud in the system “by tackling ‘no win no fee’ tax advisors trying to game the scheme.”

There have been high-profile cases of late involving UK companies who have claimed tax relief on projects.

Last year, for example, three men working for Convergica were convicted of fraud after claiming £29.5 million in tax relief on a purported £137 million spend on development work for a healthcare IT system for two countries in the Middle East that was never actually carried out.

The budget also includes a commitment to increase the NHS resource budget to over £160 billion by 2024-25, with £8 billion set aside for ‘catch-up’ elective therapies that were delayed by the pandemic.

Critics have argued that the new provisions do not tackle the major problems facing the NHS, including crippling workforce shortages, arguing that having additional equipment and facilities is almost irrelevant if there isn’t sufficient trained staff to make use of it.

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The Realpolitik Grand Divergence

The diverging relationship between economic performance and political success in the U.S. highlights a shift from the past, where a strong economy positively…

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The diverging relationship between economic performance and political success in the U.S. highlights a shift from the past, where a strong economy positively impacted incumbent approval ratings. President Biden’s approval ratings remain unaffected despite recent economic improvements, suggesting a decoupling of economic sentiment and political fortunes. This phenomenon, which contrasts with stable economic-political linkages in Europe, is attributed to the U.S.’s heightened partisan divide, where political allegiance increasingly dictates economic perception, challenging the traditional belief that “It’s the economy, stupid” in American politics.

Key Points:

  • President Clinton’s political advisor, James Carville, highlighted the economy’s role in political success during 1992 presidential campaign with assertion, “It’s the economy, stupid.”
  • Voter sentiment has traditionally linked to economic performance, affecting incumbent party success.
  • Recent trends show a disconnect between the U.S. economy’s health and President Biden’s approval ratings.
  • The COVID-19 pandemic and inflation crisis may have influenced this anomaly, yet the shift predates these events.
  • Research indicates a decoupling of economic sentiment and presidential approval in the U.S. since Obama’s tenure.
  • This phenomenon seems unique to the U.S., with European governments’ popularity still tied to economic conditions.
  • U.S. political polarization may explain the decoupling, with partisan views influencing economic perceptions.
  • Studies suggest that political biases skew individual economic assessments (confirmation bias) impacting presidential approval.
  • The current U.S. political climate suggests economic policy impact on electoral decisions is diminishing.
  • Contrasts with Europe, where economic sentiment is more uniform across political lines, suggesting a more rational political-economic relationship.

Source: Financial Times

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International

The Grand Realpolitik Divergence

The diverging relationship between economic performance and political success in the U.S. highlights a shift from the past, where a strong economy positively…

Published

on

The diverging relationship between economic performance and political success in the U.S. highlights a shift from the past, where a strong economy positively impacted incumbent approval ratings. President Biden’s approval ratings remain unaffected despite recent economic improvements, suggesting a decoupling of economic sentiment and political fortunes. This phenomenon, which contrasts with stable economic-political linkages in Europe, is attributed to the U.S.’s heightened partisan divide, where political allegiance increasingly dictates economic perception, challenging the traditional belief that “it’s the economy, stupid” in American politics.

Key Points:

  • President Clinton’s political advisor, James Carville, highlighted the economy’s role in political success during 1992 presidential campaign with assertion, “It’s the economy, stupid.”
  • Voter sentiment has traditionally linked to economic performance, affecting incumbent party success.
  • Recent trends show a disconnect between the U.S. economy’s health and President Biden’s approval ratings.
  • The COVID-19 pandemic and inflation crisis may have influenced this anomaly, yet the shift predates these events.
  • Research indicates a decoupling of economic sentiment and presidential approval in the U.S. since Obama’s tenure.
  • This phenomenon seems unique to the U.S., with European governments’ popularity still tied to economic conditions.
  • S. political polarization may explain the decoupling, with partisan views influencing economic perceptions.
  • Studies suggest that political biases skew individual economic assessments, impacting presidential approval.
  • The current U.S. political climate suggests economic policy impact on electoral decisions is diminishing.
  • Contrasts with Europe, where economic sentiment is more uniform across political lines, suggesting a more rational political-economic relationship.

Source: Financial Times

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International

Wake-Up Call

Wake-Up Call

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

“Those who organized the disaster will take advantage of the inevitable…

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Wake-Up Call

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

“Those who organized the disaster will take advantage of the inevitable discontent arising from efforts to overcome it, for if there is one thing that they are skilled in, it is demagoguery.”

- Theodore Dalrymple

Can you feel it? The tension rising to the red-line? It runs clear through all of Western Civ. We are ruled by governments of fiends. But now, the sun rides higher in the sky. The sap is rising in the northern forests. The earth heaves. The buds swell and blush. Something is in the air. The animals are waking from their long winter sleep. The natives are restless.

The two traditional political divisions, liberal and conservative died with Covid. Now there are simply the sane versus the insane. The sane have had enough of being pushed around by the insane. The insane don’t register much of what reality tries to tell them. They have a body of insane ideas to comfort and protect them from the reality’s rigors. To call that body of ideas an “ideology” is way too polite.That the insane call themselves “progressive,” is a signature of their insanity.

Progress toward what better state of things? Toward a supremacy of fiends, sadists, degenerates, and morons seizing riches and power by every dishonest means possible outside the rule of law and common decency? It’s not even suitable to call them “communists.” They lack the necessary idealism for that.

They don’t expect to put their shoulders to the wheel with their fellow man. They just want to grab your stuff and then kill you so they don’t have to hear any complaints.

The insane do not believe any of the theoretical bullshit they want to force you to swallow. They don’t care about climate change. It’s just a cudgel they use to beat everyone over the head so they can steal your stuff. They don’t care about “democracy.” It’s just a line of bullshit to cover up their election-stealing. Do you suppose that sane people would keep using electronic vote-tabulating machines that were demonstrably connected to the Internet, and thus hackable, if they cared about election integrity? Of course not. They would arrange p.d.q. to junk them and use paper ballots, and only in person at polling places, with “absentee” exceptions only for people out of the country.

The insane do not care about public health. Everything that is known about the Covid-19 vaccinations tells you that they are unsafe and don’t prevent infection or transmission of a flu-like illness that might not even be what it was officially labeled as. Our public health officials in the FDA, the CDC, and in other corners of the Department of health and Human Services, lie about everything they’re responsible for. This week, the CDC (under Director Mandy Cohen) released a 148-page study on myocarditis reactions to mRNA shots. Every word on every page of the document was redacted. The CDC printed countless copies of the report with 148 utterly blank pages, and then proffered them to the news media. How is that not insane?

The insane do not care about the rule of law. The conduct of “Lawfare” is the subversion of the law by dishonest means. It is a species of racketeering. And that is why Lawfare rogues such Marc Elias, Norm Eisen, Andrew Weissmann, Mary McCord, Lisa Monaco, Matthew Graves, and Merrick Garland, should be charged under the federal RICO statutes for conspiring to deprive sane citizens of their rights and property in the many cases related to the 1/6/21 riot at the US Capitol.

It is, so far, an abiding mystery of contemporary history as to how New York Attorney General Letitia James managed to get away with prosecuting a real estate case against Donald Trump that was no more than victimless business-as-usual between a borrower and his lenders. Ms. James ran for that elected office promising to “get” Mr. Trump on something, anything. That is not how the rule of law works. Under the rule of law, first you determine that there is a crime and then look for who did the crime.

Letitia James must be insane and/or pretty stupid. The short-term gain of stealing Mr. Trump’s property under a false color-of-law and creating impediments to his election campaign, will, sooner or later, blow back at her as a matter of malicious prosecution and, plausibly, racketeering as well. (With whom did she conspire to bring this case? We shall find out.) She will eventually be disgraced publicly as her teammate Fani Willis has already been disgraced in Fulton County, Georgia. I’ll tell you something that all sane people now know but won’t talk about for fear of being crushed by the levers of Lawfare: this looks like a concerted effort by people-of-color to railroad people of non-color. If you think that is a good thing for race relations in our country, then you are insane.

Here are a bunch of other things that are insane: Re-litigating the first amendment is insane. It means what it says, and states it plainly. The open border is insane. No credible sovereign polity would allow it. It would be opposed with force, if necessary. Turning children into transsexuals on a wholesale basis is insane, and fiendishly so. Everybody knows that it is not good for the children or for our society as a whole. But fiends got to fiend, and if you try to deprive them of being fiends then you are guilty of “hate.”

The war in Ukraine is insane. We certainly didn’t ignite it in the service of “democracy.” Our pawn there, Mr. Zelensky, canceled the national elections last year. The war was arguably an effort by our CIA to deprive Russia of its market for natgas in Europe, and thus deprive Russia of a great deal of money, that is, of prosperity. The project failed. Russia overcame NATO’s proxy army and found other markets for its gas. Blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines only served to impoverish and weaken our NATO allies, who no longer have affordable gas to run their industries. The leaders of those allies were too insane to recognize that the Nord Stream op was an act-of-war against them. They were also busy destroying themselves, like the USA, with open borders. They will end up in a new medievalism, ruled by savages. You’d have to be insane to arrange that for yourself.

What’s most obviously insane in our country is that the insane party is pretending to nominate the mentally unfit White House place-keeper, “Joe Biden,” for reelection. You would think that if this party wanted to retain power, they would run a candidate who, though insane, was not also visibly senile. But the rank and file of this party are too insane to see that this dodge is not working. They are pretending with all their might that this is okay, that the growing faction of the sane don’t notice.

Sensing the growing impatience with insanity among the voters, the insane party has reached its point of terminal desperation. What will they try next? Murder? Why not? Nothing else seemed to work. They are too far gone in their insanity to understand that winter is over. We’ve entered the season of rebirth and renewal, starting with a renewed appreciation for being sane and for that indispensable ingredient that makes liberty in a free society possible: good faith. Really, the only question left is: how rough do they intend to play to prevent the return of sanity and good faith?

*  *  *

Support his blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page or Substack

Tyler Durden Fri, 03/22/2024 - 16:25

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