24 June 2003

Government Genetics White Paper Announcement provides an opportunity to raise Oxford BioMedica's profile in Gene Therapy

On 24 June, the UK Department of Health announced that it would allocate £50 million over the next three years to improve genetic services at the National Health Service and to speed up the development of gene-base medicines.

Northbank gained insight into this Genetics White Paper announcement by closely following the press and liasing with the Department of Health and swung into action to use the opportunity to raise the profile of its client Oxford BioMedica.

On the morning of the day of the announcement, Northbank sent an email alert to all appropriate science and political correspondents on the nationals as well as trade journalists, informing them of the White Paper and putting forward Alan Kingsman, CEO of Oxford BioMedica, as a spokesperson, providing commentary on gene therapy. This resulted in a frenzy of enquiries and requests for the report and led directly to interviews for Alan Kingsman with the Independent, the Financial Times, BioCentury and Scrip World Pharmaceutical News. As a direct result of these interviews, BioCentury wrote a piece in which Alan Kingsman was quoted.

Scrip published a 700 word article on gene therapy, authored by Oxford BioMedica. And the following week, the Financial Times wrote an excellent piece on the back of this interview coupled to a news announcement.

Sue Charles, CEO of Northbank said "Many of our clients do not have a significant newsflow thus we need to explore every opportunity to positively and proactively raise their profile. Being informed in advance and acting in a timely fashion is critical to this, as this genetics white paper opportunity demonstrates"

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