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E10 E04: Pfizer's Richard Maughan on the future of access in the UK

·22 min·5 clips

The frame is access. The host introduces Richard Maughan as Pfizer's Senior Director and Head of UK Policy and Public Affairs, then gets into his route into pharma and the UK's medicine access problem. The tone is practical, with less grandstanding than the topic might invite. Richard talks about working with public policymakers and the awkward gap between scientific breakthroughs and the patients who might benefit from them. NHS pressure soon takes over the conversation. Asked to go deeper, he describes demand rising fast because the population is older, about 15% bigger than at the turn of the century, and carrying different health needs. Obesity sits in that mix. So do inequalities and what he calls historically under-impacted health challenges. Medicines are part of the answer, but he does not treat them as magic. Hospital capacity matters too. He compares the UK with Germany and says the UK has something like a third fewer hospital beds per capita. That is the point that sticks: demand is being pushed into a system he thinks lacks enough room. Healthy ageing then becomes the practical path forward. Prevention, treatment, and better use of scientific innovation all come up, especially for diseases more common in older populations, including cancer. A left-field question about drugs that might reverse some effects of ageing pulls the chat toward early science, but the close returns to systems. Science can move quickly. Healthcare systems often cannot. The mood is serious, with a bit of impatience underneath, but not bleak.

As heard by us

A measured look at UK medicine access through NHS capacity, ageing, obesity, and prevention.

Richard Maughan, Senior Director and Head of UK Policy and Public Affairs at Pfizer, grounds the episode in a simple question: how the UK can improve access to medicines while the healthcare system is under strain.

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Hear how UK medicine access runs into NHS capacity, ageing pressure, and a system stretched by rising demand.

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