The UK death toll from the pandemic would have been far higher if lockdowns weren’t introduced while the billions in taxpayers’ money spent on Covid testing was a missed opportunity to create a strong UK diagnostics sector, says Sir Chris Evans.
Addressing a meeting of Cardiff Business Club the Port Talbot-born life sciences serial investor and entrepreneur, he said the UK and the rest of the world was ill-prepared for the pandemic, but that lessons had been learned.
He told the club that he is dedicating the next phase of his career on the development of new cancer drugs through his venture Ellipses Pharma, which has a scientific advisory board of more than 120 of the world’s leading oncologists and financial backing from the royal family of Abu Dhabi.
On the spread of Covid and its impact, Sir Chris said: “I thought it would go a bit far, but I didn’t think it would go as far as it did. The UK and the world had lost control. As Bill Gates has said we weren’t prepared and we were a bit arrogant back in 2015-16 as there hadn’t been dummy pandemic trials and runs and we never listened to our own results and never implemented them and put things in practice. People slag off Neil Ferguson (who provided modelling to the UK Government) as he predicted half a million people dying and that never happened, but if we hadn’t locked down I think his prediction would have come true. So, I think we would have seen huge numbers of deaths because there are a lot of skinheads out there and drunks and football hooligans, who think they are not going to care and so spread it (Covid).
“Also, say the vaccines came through in December 2021 instead of December 2020, it would have been catastrophic for this country. The vaccines were fantastic and we eventually caught up on our other problems like ventilators, respirators and masks, but sadly a lot of people had died.”
He said billions spent on testing for Covid should have been used strategically as a springboard to create a dynamic UK diagnostics sector.
Sir Chris said: “Testing was also very good, but it was a bit slow as we didn’t have a diagnostics industry in this country. And one of my big beefs, which a few ministers are aware of, is we still don’t have a diagnostics industry in this country. So, we chose to give £4bn to a load of Californians with Hawaiian shirts with a Chinese test for a diagnostics industry in Palo Alto and we didn’t even give 1% of that to our own British companies who could have made big impacts. I will never get my head around that and was strategically completely wrong as those companies would be now very powerful British companies all investing in the next thing in diagnostics So, we made some big mistakes and we had an opportunity which will not get again when the government can free wheel and invest huge sums of money, so we missed a trick there on testing.”
He said Ellipses Pharma was focused solely on developing clinical cancer medicines.
He added: “Most of what I am going to do over the next 20 years is in cancer testing and diagnostics for really early detection of cancers, particularly ovarian cancer which is totally undetectable in the very early stages. There are lots of treatments coming down the track, but we need thousands of treatments coming down the track and not just another 12 or 13 of them. So, there is a lot of work to be done by a lot of people so that is where I want to really focus.”
With £100m of funding the venture had compiled a database of 21,000 cancer compounds in existence in the world.
He added: “Some people put £500,000 in (drug development) and then cannot take it any further because there is no money for a really good idea, while others have put in tens of millions and they get stuck at some stage as until you pass phase two clinical trials with a cancer drug, you haven’t got a cancer drug.
“So, we have put this unique database together and something like £69bn has gone into the creation of those substances from all over the world at various stages. And it is sitting there and the model of Ellipses Pharma is to go and talk to these people and screen these compounds to see what is the gem. We have now assembled a team, including oncologists in Wales, of 127 world leaders on our scientific advisory board. We pay them and send our projects up to this panel to look at. If we get a 90-odd percent of the world’s leading cancer experts saying that is a great project, you have got to do it, then it falls to me to write the cheque of £20m to back that case. Our aim is to get the best results to give the drug the best potential. It is going extremely well and we have identified some fabulous things and brought them through and invested some substantial amounts and we feel confident about it.”
He said that in his business career he has enjoyed successes, but also endured failures.
His career to date has seen him creating 40 life sciences firms with a valuation of £7bn,
Sir Chris said: “A happy German person once said to me ‘you don’t understand Chris life is a journey and failure is temporary’. I said what are you talking about. Life is a journey, pain is temporary but failure is forever. Success is what you have won, so when you do get success then suck it up and enjoy it... buy yourself a Ferrari, or whatever you want to, because failures and the cock-ups will come.
“You have all these companies that are working and you think you have a formula and then it goes pear-shaped and then you realise after a while that you are not as good as you think you are and you also bring people into your systems, structures and organisations, who are also not as good as they think they are, or you think they are. And that has been my biggest single failing in all of my career in that we have done some brilliant pieces of science and activity, raised money and done a lots of good things. When it works it is a joy to watch it going from £1m to £10m from a £100m to a £1bn... everyone is enjoying it and investors are having a marvellous return. But it also goes wrong when you have people who don’t really do what they should be doing.”
He told the club having a positive impact on society was his driving motivation.
Sir Chris added:” The biggest single impact from what I do, which I will never stop enjoying, is seeing the impact of science on people, communities and human life. So, whether you make a £100,000 or £100m, if you are saving thousands of people, or one little baby, or one person from cancer, it is brilliant to see that.”
