Associate Feature: IQVIA - deeply embedded in Scottish Life Sciences

In the last year, IQVIA has conducted over 500 clinical trials on behalf of pharmaceutical and biotech companies based all over the world, including several COVID vaccine and treatment studies - involving over 10,000 NHS patients. We have boosted patient care and made a £1.2bn contribution to the UK economy¹.

As Scotland’s largest life science sector employer, IQVIA is proud to be supporting over 900 active clinical trials from their Q2 Solutions Laboratory in Livingston, an integral part of Scotland’s life sciences ecosystem. These trials cover treatments being developed for the entire spectrum of disease, including life changing treatments in cancer, neurodegenerative disorders, and rare diseases to bring ground-breaking innovations to patients in Scotland and across the globe. 

Our state-of-the-art Alba Campus laboratory analyses around 5 million samples each year, received from hospitals and clinics across UK, Europe and Northern Africa. With a focus on combining state of the art technology, human data science and optimised clinical research design, we support the improvement of healthcare delivery and patient outcomes across Scotland and beyond. A critical part of IQVIA’s business, our Livingston Q2 Solutions team recognise that every single sample we touch, has been given to us by a patient and, as such, we treat every one of our samples as if a life depends upon it. Our aim: to improve patient lives through clinical research and translate the hopes of our patients into therapeutic reality.

As the healthcare landscape continues to focus on precision medicine, we have continued to enhance our understanding of genomics and how individual genetic make-up, coupled with environment and lifestyle, impacts the way in which patients are treated for specific diseases.  Our recent multi-million-pound expansion has significantly increased our capabilities in genomics research and will allow us to continue, at scale, to deliver life changing, cell, gene and RNA therapies to our patients across the globe.

“IQVIA’s combined services are already improving patient experiences across Scotland and can further improve patient lives by optimising Healthcare delivery, enhancing our Healthcare Research infrastructure and driving a Scotland-First agenda for Life Sciences sector growth.” 
- Elaine Lowey, General Manager, Central Laboratories EMEA, Q2 Solutions, IQVIA

Our Scottish Footprint - delivering for patients
IQVIA now employs over 1,200 people in Scotland; a flexible combination of onsite employees, remote or hybrid working model employees and a number of field-based employees who support our NHS researchers within Scotland’s hospitals. Working with NHS Scotland for 40 years, IQVIA will continue to work to ensure better delivery of clinical research in Scotland.
Our Q2 Solutions Livingston laboratory is continuously improving capabilities in response to the changing needs and technologies within our industry. Most notably, cell, gene, and RNA therapies continue to drive many of the innovations in healthcare. Our expanded capacity allows us to support these within Scotland and enable these innovations to be translated from high level and investment research, into the foundations of faster development and deployment of these therapies to benefit patients. 

In addition, our collaboration with Government, global scientific counterparts, and leading Scottish academics, gives us the opportunity to deliver genomics-evidence based strategies for patients including individualised medication management and prescribing. In doing so, we can improve patient outcomes, reduce hospitalisations and produce a significant reduction in drug costs to the NHS and healthcare providers across the world. 

Economic benefit - the difference we make
Alignment with policy is an ongoing priority for IQVIA within Scotland and the UK and extends beyond our corporate objectives – our Scottish team is actively involved across the Scottish Government’s Health, Trade and Business Ministers, Skills Development Scotland, and Scottish Life Science Industry Leadership Group, helping to devise and deliver clear strategies which support employment and the whole of life science and healthcare in Scotland.  

Following the completion of the recent expansion, supported by a Scottish Enterprise R&D grant and further to the recent visit from the Department of International Trade (DIT), the team were delighted to host Lord Grimstone who was given a first-hand insight from the team on the diverse and significant contribution that IQVIA make to clinical trial patients in Scotland and beyond. That investment, and the economic gain in building the Scottish life sciences sector was highlighted as a major opportunity by Lord Grimstone of Boscobel, Minister of State for Investment, during his visit to Scotland in May. The Minister visited the Alba Campus facility to meet with the senior leadership team and briefly tour the facility. After the visit he said “High-value, high-impact investment provides a significant contribution to business turnover, job creation and levelling up across the UK”, and our team shared with him the scale of opportunity that is open to life Sciences in Scotland.

IQVIA continues to operate a fully sustainable growth model and will continue to strive towards sustainable production, carbon neutrality and minimised environment impact from our operations. Our Livingston facility (operating its electricity supply from 100% renewable sources), is actively working towards obtaining “My Green Lab” certification which, alongside our sustainability strategy, ensures we take responsible ownership of the protection of our local, national, and global environment for future generations. 

Attracting International Research and Innovation to Scotland
Through continued investment planned for the Livingston laboratory, IQVIA will build commitments from global pharma and biotech companies by providing cutting-edge research capabilities within Scotland as part of the national innovation support infrastructure, a key aim of the Scottish Life Sciences strategy.

Through collaboration with the Scottish Government and NHS, IQVIA aim to support Scotland in becoming a world-leading destination for clinical research, providing fast and free access for Scottish patients to healthcare innovations, and further reducing the drug cost burden to the NHS. Working with the Scottish Government and Government advisory bodies, IQVIA are committed to contributing high value, industry expertise to government policy development.  

IQVIA have laid the strategic foundation for further expansion of genomic, immunological and specific neurodegenerative biomarker capabilities in Scotland to support precision medicine capabilities in Scotland, translating this into further high-quality local employment, across multiple disciplines from Lab based roles, to Project Management and corporate support roles, leading to transformative outcomes for patients in Scotland and beyond.

Future plans for IQVIA include working closely with the Scottish Government to support the implementation of its Genomics Strategy and being part of the “triple helix” encompassing academia, clinical and patient communities, as well as healthcare industry. 

1. https://www.iqvia.com/-/media/iqvia/pdfs/uk/fact-sheets/unlocking-health-data-to-transform-uk-patient-care-iqvia.pdf

This article is sponsored by IQVIA.