Carolyn Wickware

The supply of emergency contraception through the NHS pharmacy contraception service is “positively impacting health inequalities”, a senior NHS England figure has said. Speaking at the Pharmacy Show, held in Birmingham on 11 October 2026, Kirsty Armstrong, senior policy lead for clinical strategy for pharmacy at NHS England, told delegates that the addition of emergency contraception to the NHS pharmacy contraception service in October 2025 has “been phenomenal”.

Sophie Willis, investigations editor at The Pharmaceutical Journal, has been recognised as ‘Newcomer of the Year’ at the 2025 Avicenna Media Awards, held at Barber-Surgeon’s Hall in London on 31 January 2025. The judges were impressed with Willis’s “ability to grasp the complexities of the pharmacy sector” at such an early stage in her career as a pharmacy writer, while taking “a different investigative approach to looking into the matters affecting the industry”.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has recommended olaparib (Lynparza; AstraZeneca) for treatment of HER2-negative locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer in adults with BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutations who have had chemotherapy. In the final draft guidance, published on 9 January 2025, NICE said around 1,200 people could benefit from the treatment, after reaching a commercial arrangement with manufacturer AztraZeneca.