As of January 2021 Bingham is listed as being a director of the following active companies:[2] Mestag Therapeutics Ltd; Cybele Therapeutics Ltd; Bicycle tx Ltd; Bicycle Therapeutics plc; Sitryx Therapeutics Ltd; Pulmocide Ltd; Autifony Therapeutics Ltd; Bicycle RD Ltd; SV Health Investors Ltd (whose subsidiaries include the Dementia Discovery Fund);[12] and SV Health Managers LLP.
In May 2020 Bingham was appointed chair of the UK Vaccine Taskforce, without a competitive recruitment process.[14] The taskforce was set up to manage the path towards the introduction of a COVID-19 vaccine in the UK and its global distribution.[7] In this temporary unpaid role,[15] which finished at the end of the year,[15] she reported to the prime minister.[7] In October, she was one of the participants in a trial of a vaccine by Novavax.[16] Dame Kate's account of the risks, criticism and political interference she faced are discussed in her book The Long Shot which was published in October 2022 with all proceeds going to the New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering (NMITE).[17] In this she detailed the need for a specialist health communications capability to launch a national Vaccines Registry which was a core part of the vaccine procurement and development strategy and that this was contracted by the Department of Business Energy and Industrial Strategy.[18] According to leaked documents seen by The Sunday Times, Bingham charged taxpayers £670,000 for a team of eight full-time consultants from London PR agency Admiral Associates.[19]
Dame Kate's work on the UK's vaccination rollout programme has been praised by scientists and international media,[20][21][22][3] particularly for securing 350 million doses of six vaccines and setting up infrastructure for clinical trials, manufacturing and distribution.[3]
Awards and honours
In 2016 Bingham received a Honorary Doctorate from the University of Bath. In January 2017 she received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the BioIndustry Association UK.[11]
Bingham has expressed views on how the UK covid vaccination programme could have been better run,[31] and on how UK potential in life sciences could be improved.[32][33]
She published her account of the seven months she spent chairing the Vaccine Taskforce in her book The Long Shot, in which she shared lessons for future pandemics and offered advice on how government could work more successfully with industry.[34]
Personal life
Bingham married Jesse Norman in 1992; the couple have two sons and a daughter.[35] Norman is a Conservative Party politician and a member of Parliament since 2010, who held various ministerial posts from 2016 to 2023.[36]