UK Biobank and its legal team have created two new in-house counsel roles in their Stockport based legal function.
Florit Legal is delighted to have been exclusively retained represent the organisation at a time when its resources are of additional national and international importance in finding a way out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
UK Biobank is a major national and international health resource, and a registered charity, undertaking a medical research project with the aim of improving the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of serious and life-threatening illnesses – including cancer, heart diseases, stroke, diabetes, arthritis, osteoporosis, eye disorders, depression and forms of dementia.
UK Biobank provides a resource to bona fide researchers anywhere in the world, including those funded by academia and industry, trying to understand why some individuals develop disease and others do not.
In order to carry out its work, UK Biobank recruited 500,000 volunteers aged between 40 and 69 in 2006-2010 from across the United Kingdom to take part in this ongoing project. Participants have undergone measures, provided blood, urine and saliva samples for future analysis, detailed information about themselves and agreed to have their health followed. Over many years this will build into a powerful resource to help scientists discover why some people develop particular diseases and others do not.
From May 2020, thousands of UK Biobank participants have also been asked to take part in a major government study to measure the extent of the COVID-19 infection in different regions across the UK and to understand how long antibody levels persist following infection.
UK Biobank’s Principal Investigator, and CEO, Sir Rory Collins has stated:
“We believe most people have mild or no symptoms of infection with coronavirus, but a small proportion fall very ill. This study will help determine the proportion of people who have been infected and, crucially, how long they are immune from further infection
“Much better understanding of how long antibodies to coronavirus stay in the blood, and how quickly immunity wears off, are vital to finding a way out of this pandemic.”
UK Biobank was established by the Wellcome Trust medical charity, Medical Research Council, Department of Health, Scottish Government and the Northwest Regional Development Agency. It has also had funding from the Welsh Government, British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK and Diabetes UK. It is supported by the National Health Service (NHS).
UK Biobank’s legal team is focused on a wide range of legal work including commercial contracts, procurement, technology, data and HR. Potential candidates could come from another in-house legal department or any mainstream business law practice area, in a respected commercial legal practice. As a result of this project, the lawyer headcount will increase from 3 to 5.
This represents another example of how organisations have seen the benefit of our L-TAR hiring model in resolving the challenges faced when hiring in-house lawyers.
Please subscribe to our mailing list for more in-house legal recruitment market insights.
Florit Legal Recruitment is one of the top specialists in the search and recruitment of in-house legal counsel in the UK. We are among the best legal recruitment agencies for in-house legal jobs, general counsel, company secretary and head of legal appointments, and a reliable source of UK lawyer salary information and executive coaching for lawyers.
