L@B Brief - April 2025
29 April 2025
To download a PDF of the April issue, click here
To download a copy of April's Standards Bulletin, click here
In this month's issue...
Opportunity to speak at Lab Innovations
Additional benefit for GAMBICA lab members worth £3000 per annum
Lab construction and upgrade projects: Oxford, Norwich, King’s Cross, Liverpool and Alabama…
Export news: R&D spend slows in OECD but surges in China... New package of support from UKEF
Chemicals company fined £2.5 million for acid releases
MHRA retains WHO partner status
Customers starting to worry about PFAS rules
PHARMA COMPANY Almac Sciences has been in touch with GAMBICA to express concerns about the ongoing threat to UK laboratory equipment from the threatened EU ban on Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS). PFAS, known in the press as ‘forever chemicals’ are also the subject of a current consultation by UK regulators. Senior investigation scientist at Almac, Nick Tyrell, has highlighted that the impact of the EU ban would be to outlaw the very equipment required to identify the presence of PFAS, saying that laboratories will have to get used to labs without temperature probes, stirrers, agitators, centrifuges and many other types of equipment if the ban goes through.
Nick has agreed to present a webinar for GAMBICA members on 8 May, to highlight the potential impact of EU and UK controls on PFAS on their businesses (see GAMBICA events below to book your place).
Some PFAS substances are undoubtedly harmful and bioaccumulate. There is probably no-one in western Europe who doesn’t have PFAS in their bloodstream, but it is not only pharmaceutical companies like Almac Sciences which are concerned about the practicability of a blanket ban which would include substances not known to have any harmful effect.
European industry groups have been campaigning hard on this issue, but unfortunately, many of those who are most concerned about the impact of the legislation as it is currently proposed, are based in Germany and relatively little support for their cause has been provided by other EU nations. This has led the committees reviewing the legislation to ask if difficulties in implementing the bans are ‘purely a German problem?’.
The UK is consulting right now on how it should treat the issue of forever chemicals, will it follow the EU lead and ban them outright? Would labs be able to continue to function without PFAS? I do hope you will join the meeting – this could be a big issue for you and I would like to have your input so that I can lobby the UK government with your views.
To reserve your place, click here.
Jacqueline