UK alarm bells are ring­ing as a biotech cuts a few tri­al sites, fret­ting over Brex­it’s im­pact on drug de­vel­op­ment

A very low-pro­file transat­lantic biotech has found a place in the spot­light for the first time with its de­ci­sion to cut UK tri­al sites out of an up­com­ing heart drug study — ev­i­dent­ly due to un­cer­tain­ty about drug de­vel­op­ment in a post-Brex­it world.

The BBC re­port­ed the move by a com­pa­ny called Re­car­dio — with of­fices in Aus­tria and San Fran­cis­co — which will like­ly stoke new fears that the UK’s im­pend­ing de­par­ture from the EU will se­vere­ly dis­rupt the coun­try’s bio­phar­ma in­dus­try. So far, that’s been play­ing out with warn­ings over a pos­si­ble in­ter­rup­tion in drug sup­plies un­less the UK can ham­mer out an ex­it deal that muf­fles any fall­out.

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