Healthcentric Advisors

Abstract The Local Government Pension Scheme (“LGPS”) is typically administered by local authorities. Somewhat incongruously with its localised nature, or even recent pooling measures, there are attempts by those campaigning for boycott, divestment and sanctions (“BDS”) against the State of Israel to extend the reach of the town hall into the geopolitical arena. The decision in R. (on the Application of Palestine Solidarity Campaign Ltd.) v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government [2020] UKSC 16 is seen by those BDS activists as providing a self-contained roadmap for LGPS divestments and boycotts. They are mistaken. This article considers the questions that remain to be addressed and the need for local government lawyers to look beyond local government law to the rules of equity. When the principles and rules of equity are violated in adopting divestment or exclusion policies, a court of equity will not hesitate to intervene. This is not equity’s incursion into the local government arena. For insofar as the conduct of administering authorities as fiduciaries, or quasi-trustees, is concerned, it was always there.

As the vaccines field continues to evolve, new technologies, targets, and delivery strategies are reshaping both research priorities and implementation pathways. We asked members of the Vaccine Insights Editorial Advisory Board to reflect on the areas shaping their current work and the developments they believe will influence the field in the years ahead. "Based on current trends, I expect increased focus on vaccine formulations that incorporate multiple antigens or immunogens, potentially addressing several diseases or stages within a single product." - Rajender Jena, Head Malaria Vaccines (Quality Control), Serum Institute of India Pvt Ltd, India

This paper proposes an experiential pedagogical exercise that allows finance and real estate students to assess the financial viability of a net-leased, single tenant standalone retail property located in a major metropolitan area. This exercise provides students with the opportunity to complement their classroom/textbook instruction with a real-life practical application of the concepts and mathematical skills they have acquired. To complete the case study, students receive an investment prospectus and an assignment protocol that lays out the data and supporting information necessary to value the property and produce an investment thesis. The successful completion of this assignment ensures student competence in valuing commercial real estate using qualitative and quantitative methods which are analytical skills that are readily transferable to the workplace.

Integrating patient preferences into the design of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) may help accelerate innovation for alternative kidney replacement therapy by appropriately selecting a trial's significance level and sample size, and have a meaningful impact on people suffering from kidney failure. While a conventional one-sided significance level threshold of 2.5% is often used to assess the safety of a proposed device, we show in this study that it is not necessarily consistent with the risk-preferences of patients with dialysis-dependent kidney disease. We apply a Bayesian decision analysis (BDA) framework to results from a patient preference survey and estimate the optimal significance level and sample size required in an RCT to assess the safety of a hypothetical dialysis device. Based on survey responses from 599 patients with dialysis-dependent kidney failure, we found that the optimal significance level threshold differs significantly from the classical 2.5% threshold used in two-sided hypothesis tests across various patient subgroups. On average, patients tended to require a significance level of 1.2% for the risk of bleeding and a significance level <0.1% for the risk of serious infection, suggesting that the survey respondents were not willing to bear either type of additional risk presented by the hypothetical device in exchange for the possible benefits described in the survey. However, there was heterogeneity among the patient subgroups of dialysis modality, age, gender, ethnicity, and time on dialysis. Overall, our study shows that the BDA framework is a robust, systematic, transparent, and reproducible method for incorporating patient preference information into the design and regulatory review process of clinical trials for novel therapeutics.

This paper concentrates on the legal basis of processing personal data in the context of the employment background screening role. Although this is a specialised task, it serves as a useful exercise for any enterprise evaluating the legal basis of processing personal information, especially when third parties are involved. When conducting employment background screening, the roles of the parties involved need to be clearly outlined. If a third party screening company is used, they may be a data processor, which requires specific contractual language. If they are a data controller, then joint controller language will need to be completed, as the employer and background screener have entirely separate roles in the data processing. Determining the legal basis of processing is primarily completed by the hiring organisation, as only they know who they are screening and why. Although the term ‘consent’ is commonly used in the background screening process, it is rarely allowable in General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or GDPR-like privacy regulations but may be the primary legal basis of processing in other countries. This can set up a conflict of laws for the hiring organisation, which they will have to navigate through. This article is also included in The Business &amp; Management Collection which can be accessed at https://hstalks.com/business/.