Vaccines lead the way!

The question of why some people are resistant to having a vaccine for COVID-19 is a crucial one, as the world strives to get back to some sense of normality. As the British newspapers have been heralding in recent weeks, the vaccine is our way back, but the aim of vaccines is to work towards a high level of immunity in the population, and this will only be possible if enough people receive the vaccine. As COVID-19 continues to prove just how dangerous it is to some parts of the population, Mike Dixon gives some advice in his column on page 14 on how the healthcare community can contribute to this crucial conversation.

In Mike Fraser’s article on page 16, he looks at what’s in store for rare genetic diseases in 2021. Mike, General Manager, EMEA at Novartis Gene Therapies, talks about how the numerous breakthroughs in recent years have made it clear that personalised medicine based on our own genomes is the future of healthcare.

On page 20, Richard O’Kennedy, VP for Research, Development and Innovation at Qatar Foundation and the VP for Research at Hamad Bin Khalifa University looks at precision medicine and why, with the value of precision medicine still too often implicit, we need clinicians and the scientific community to produce hard evidence that it is cost-effective.

Danny Buckland talks to Angela Young, chief people officer at Lucid Group and Claire Long, Deputy Managing Director, Communications at 90TEN about the remote working revolution on page 26. The article looks at how the pandemic has recalibrated the rhythms of the working day – raising productivity, reducing absenteeism and decreasing employee attrition – but asks if this is at the expense of corporate culture.

I hope you enjoy this issue!

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