The experts give their views

“Great science is on our doorstep. We are second only to the US for Nobel Prizes and top universities. The UK is the third global life sciences cluster behind Boston and San Francisco, and we raised a quarter of all European biotech venture capital in 2019. More than two-thirds of European biotech start-ups since 2012 were founded in the UK.

Gerard Grech Chief Executive, Tech Nation

“It remains too early to tell how widely the Covid-19 pandemic will impact the technology sector. Early signs suggest that it has proven more resilient than others and there are widespread examples of how it has helped businesses in other sectors to be the same.

“Clearly, the fact that tech solutions are increasingly driving growth in the private and public sector helps. The digital technology sector grew six times faster than the rest of the UK economy in 2019 and employs nearly three million people across the country. Over the coming years, businesses, consumers and governments will lean on tech solutions like never before.”

“UK biotechs are developing technologies that solve critical global challenges: companies like Oxford Nanopore developed the handheld DNA sequencing device used throughout China to diagnose and track the coronavirus.

“Capital is on our doorstep in the City but is it seizing the opportunity? Historically, few have participated in the prevailing life sciences boom, but during the pandemic, we’ve welcomed support from the investor community, with many investing in the sector for the first time.”

“These barriers are well known: gaps in talent and skills, access to markets, at home and overseas, opportunities to develop leadership capacity, a need to access finance, notably patient capital, and a lack of flexible infrastructure. Another critical challenge is that large disparities in scale-up numbers persist at a regional level so levelling up across the UK must be a priority.”

Steve Bates OBE

Chief Executive of the UK BioIndustry Association

“To build successful life science companies you need three things: great science, great people and the money to back them to success. The UK is not short of any of these components, but they aren’t pulling together in equal measure for our sector. As a result, we have a scaleup challenge, and pension savers in particular are at risk of missing out on a key growth sector of the economy.

“Our recent analysis of the latest ONS data from 2018 showed the first drop in the number of scale-ups since 2013, a decline of more than seven per cent to 33,860, but real progress has been made over the past five years. The number of scale-ups today is 25 per cent higher than it was in 2013. That compares favourably with gross domestic product growth, which was just 11 per cent over the same period.

“However, this underscores how we must redouble our efforts to foster more scale-ups and enable these resilient companies to overcome persistent barriers to growth.

“An effective and connected entrepreneurial finance ecosystem is vital for the successful growth and scaling of small businesses across the UK – and a thriving angel community is an essential component of this supply chain of scale-up finance. Many of the inspiring businesses featured in this report have successfully accessed angel finance to build their early-stage growth and scale.

“Last year showed a continuing rise in the level of angel investment in innovating businesses, with an increase in the value of initial and follow-on investments made by the investors and with experienced angels committing more than 20 per cent of their disposable assets in backing growthfocused entrepreneurs.

“The year 2020 has been a challenging time for the angel investment market. Angel investors have focused on supporting the growth of the businesses in their existing portfolios during the Covid-19 crisis, providing strategic support, mentoring and hands-on help, while many have been providing extensive additional funding, bringing forward investment rounds to their investee businesses to enable them to continue to survive and grow.”