IN THE 1960s Britain had risen to become the powerhouse in clinical pharmacology. Our pharmacologists, physicians, pharmacists and chemists had become pre-eminent in Europe with the discovery of new medicines: the beta blockers, the beta2 agonists, the prostaglandins, and a cadre of world leading experts.

As I started by career in drug delivery and pharmaceutics in the sixties, the whole era of new medicines and healthcare had begun to transform the universities and scientific interactions blossomed. New computer technology begets software, begets invention. Controlled release formulations and devices: the transdermal patch, the ’pill’ and the inhaler impacted society and arrived as part of the possibilities for better patient care.

Following the thalidomide scandal and a few other issues, the system needed stronger oversight. The better regulation and European harmonisation of medicines regulation required a physical base and the UK was chosen.

In 1995, the European Medicines Agency (formerly the EMEA and now the EMA) opened the doors on the shiny London office. In the first two decades of existence, the EMA authorised a total of 975 human and 188 veterinary medicines.

The need for clinical trials fed and supported the medical sciences network and grew regulatory departments in the British pharmaceutical industry.

Many of the UK’s leading medical scientists were members of the committees and advisory boards. They earned the respect of their European and American colleagues and remained the best-informed scientists of their day.

In addition to the regulatory activities, the experts who worked at and visited the EMA London offices were well informed about the direction of travel in Europe.

As the pan European research programme Horizon 2020 unfolded, I was a member of the steering group of the European Union Federation for Pharmaceutical Sciences. Accompanied by a Dutch professor and the Dean of Pharmacy at Lisbon, we made our trip to London to align ourselves with the emerging ideas, kindly and freely provided by a team of the most senior members of the organisation. We made our pitch to the academic community, encouraging cross-country collaboration for programmes in the pharmaceutical sciences .

And how Scottish universities have benefitted from European collaboration in the clinical sciences and beyond. At least a half of the scientists I work with are based in other European cities; in fact, collaboration across countries for some is more common than with the colleagues in the same university or even across local links. Our interactions are based on expertise, command of technology and friendship not necessarily on who ends up in the next laboratory or office … who might be Scottish, English, French or Greek.

The has jus closed its doors in London and the jobs moved to Holland. I mourn its loss. The departure seems to be particularly brutal. The punchline in the announcement is that the UK becomes ‘a third country’ (ouch too close to sounding like third-rate) and as a consequence ‘‘the UK will no longer be able to engage as (co)-rapporteur for new marketing authorisation applications for which the centralised procedure would finish after 30 March 2019.

‘‘This is without prejudice to the outcome of the withdrawal negotiations. No Member State has previously decided to leave the EU, so there is no precedent for this situation.”

Hard love and not so much ‘au revoir” as “so long and thanks for all the fish” . To negotiate yourself into a situation in which there is room for dialogue and a future reaffirmation is always sensible, but radiant intelligence and wit have not been the hallmark of this dreadful apology for leadership in the UK.

Our present myopic and photophobic government down in Westminster have thrown away a jewel that was mined from the intellect, hard-work and brilliance of their better and more intelligent academic forebears. Their legacy of such a monumental fossilisation of clinical pharmacology and biopharmaceutics, with such an abject lack of comprehension is to be deplored.