CEO Update: Tuesday 8 May 2018

Last week was a busy one for the BIA. On Tuesday we held a webinar ‘Introducing the Broker’ – the first in our new finance series. Our expert speakers from across the world of healthcare finance gave their insight into MiFID II, accessing international funding, approaching brokers and more. If you weren’t able to attend, we’ve uploaded the full webinar to our YouTube channel.

Together with ABPI, we brought together the Brexit Leads from within member companies to provide an update on our work and ensure that it is going in the right direction.  Speakers from Department for Exiting the EU and MHRA also provided negotiations and regulatory updates.  The next Lead Network meeting will take place in July, after June’s European Council. 

On Wednesday, we had the second meeting of our China Biotech Special Interest Group, where the focus of the meeting was financing opportunities from China. We gained some practical insight from Joyce Xie, IP Group, and Tim Watson, Instinctif, on the Chinese Capital Market, what Chinese investors are looking for and how to prepare your communications in a different cultural environment. We then had Jonathan Tobin, Arix Bioscience, and Neil Clark, Destiny Pharma, give us some first-hand experiences of making deals with Chinese investment firms, along with the challenges and advantages that came with these deals. For more information on the China Biotech SIG go to the BIA website.

On Thursday evening we held our annual BIA lecture at the Francis Crick Institute, where SR One’s Matthew Foy and I sat down for a fireside chat with Sir David Cooksey GBE to talk about his remarkable career. Among his many roles, Sir David chaired the team that published a forward-looking report on the future of the UK bioscience industry ‘Biosciences 2015’ - which led to the formation of NIHR - and he also undertook the ‘Cooksey Review of Health Research Funding’. But according to Sir David himself, his most proudest achievement in his incredible career is his work setting up the Crick. He was Chairman of the Crick 2009 – 2017 and instrumental in making the Crick a reality. 

On Friday the BIA team visited the Parkinson’s UK Brain Bank on the imperial college campus in Hammersmith. This gave us a real insight into the research that Parkinson’s UK are carrying out and gave staff the opportunity to watch a brain dissection to see how Parkinson’s affects the brain and gain a deeper of the physical impact of the disease.

I’m also very pleased to announce that the BIA is entering into a new partnership with the Royal College of Physicians. We’ll be working together to see how both memberships can draw on each other’s expertise to boost the UK’s capabilities in research and development to bring innovative new treatments to patients. Read our full announcement here.

Looking ahead, we’ve got a workshop taking place later today – ‘Shaping the Future – what science do we want funded to support UK BioIndustry?’. We’ll be reviewing, challenging and refining our ‘top ten’ list of scientific areas that we believe are most important to fund over the next 5-10 years. Staying with Industrial Strategy, Innovate UK have announced the next steps the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund - wave 3 which you can read on their blog here.

On Friday we’ve got a webinar aimed at anyone heading out for the 2018 BIO conference – ‘Getting the most from BIO 2018’. Join us for tips and guidance on how to make the most of your trip to Boston. We will cover everything from transport to networking receptions.

We’re also expecting the latest life science competitiveness indicators to be published this week. We’ll be looking at the report closely and will publish a blog giving our analysis of it and the latest Strengths and Opportunities data in due course. This data will also be discussed at the first Life Sciences Council meeting next week.

I’d also like to remind you that our 2018 CEO & Investor Forum in now right around the corner, taking place on 23-24 May. This interactive and thought-provoking two-day forum is a key event for the year and is exclusively designed for those in the investment community, and for corporate senior management from BIA member and non-members organisations. We recently published a blog looking at some key features of the event, so make sure to take a look and register here.

Finally, we are currently recruiting for three positions at the BIA: Communications Executive, Events Manager, and Membership & Marketing Manager. We’re looking for talented individuals to come and join our team, so please share these openings with your networks.

Best, Steve.