HOW WILL THE UK’S LIFE SCIENCES SECTOR BUILD ON ITS SUCCESSES?

Life science companies helped diagnose and counter Covid-19, which significantly raised their public profile. Can this new awareness continue?

We invited life science companies to talk through the issues

Life Sciences will be one of the great drivers of growth in the 21st century.

“Through innovation and technological advances, we will diagnose, treat, cure and prevent a much wider range of disease than is currently possible.”

This was the view of Professor Sir John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford and Sir Jonathan Symonds, Chair of British pharmaceutical and biotech GSK plc (formerly known as GlaxoSmithKline), writing in the foreword of the government’s Life Sciences Vision report published last year.

And in the heart of our region is one of Europe’s most successful life sciences clusters where hundreds of companies, from start-ups to multi-nationals, undertake research and development, and manufacture a wide range of innovative, often life-saving, products and therapies.

We invited some of them to a special round table event at Milton Park, itself home to more than 40 life sciences companies, and asked them to share their greatest successes and discuss the challenges ahead.