Brexit, six months on: trying to decipher the headlines, hints and hazards

Plenty of obstacles have emerged over the decades to challenge French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur’s statement in the 19th century that science knows no country, from world wars to vast economic and technological inequalities from one region to another.

Where pharma and biotech are concerned, those inequalities have as been as evident as anyone, with the nation or continent of one’s birth often determining opportunities to benefit from new advances in medical science, to work in the industry which discovers and develops them and to share in the wealth which accompanies them.

In that context – and a sense of calm and perspective has often been needed to digest the hyperbolic headlines, debate and predictions – perhaps the decision of UK voters for their country to leave the European Union (EU) in June’s referendum should not be viewed as such a major event for an industry that arguably is able to change lives more effectively than politicians.