COVID-19 update: what the UK life sciences are doing to battle against it and how to support

Steve Bates OBE

Chief Executive Officer

What does your role at BIA involve?

Steve Bates is the CEO of the UK Bioindustry Association, the UK’s Trade Association for innovative life science companies with over 550 members. Steve is the visible face of the vibrant UK life sciences industry to government and media. He serves on the UK Government’s Life Sciences Council and the UK Biosecurity Leadership Council. Steve was a founder member of the UK Government’s Vaccine Taskforce in the Covid crisis, sitting on its steering Board alongside Kate Bingham. He is active member and former chair the International Council of Biotech Associations and has been a board member of EuropaBio since 2015.

Previous experience & achievements

Steve has championed, with government, effective industrial incentives like the Biomedical Catalyst, which have crowded in private sector investment into UK SMEs. He is a driving force behind the scale up agenda, spearheading policy agenda to unlock UK pension fund capital into productive UK growth in life sciences. He has forged several links for the sector across the USA, Europe and in China. In his time at the BIA, Steve has developed new member groups focused on cell and gene therapy, genomics and engineered biology. A strong advocate of partnership working, Steve champions sector collaboration with research charities and academia. Proud to lead an organisation with a diverse Board with over 40% female representation, Steve is committed to next generation talent and developing the skills needed for the sector to flourish. Before joining the BIA in 2012, Steve worked for Genzyme and was advisor to the UK Government of Tony Blair working on NHS reform and the Northern Ireland peace process. He was made OBE for services to innovation in 2017 and became a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Science in 2020.

Ian McCubbin CBE

Chair of RoslinCT, Chair of Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult

Chair of RoslinCT and Chair of Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult; Chair of Manufacturing Advisory Group for IUK Industrial Challenge Fund; Member of the UK Government Vaccines Task Force. Ian retired from his role as SVP North America, Japan & Global Pharma Supply, GSK in April 2017. He joined GSK in 2006, his second spell with the company and was responsible for 17 factories and 7,000 employees globally whose role within GSK was to supply the New Product pipeline and the majority of GSK's pharmaceutical sales. Ian chaired the Advanced Therapy Manufacturing Task Force originally co-chaired with George Freeman, Minister for Life Sciences and the group published its Action Plan to 'anchor' commercial scale manufacturing in the UK. The Action Plan has subsequently been adopted in full as part of the Life Sciences Industrial Strategy. He led the manufacturing work stream of the UK Vaccines Task Force between March 2020 and May 2021. Ian is a pharmacist with 40 years of experience in the Pharmaceutical industry working for GSK, Merck Generics and IVAX. His core capability is in the field of manufacturing and supply chain leadership and new product introduction. His passion is cell and gene therapies due to their transformational medical benefits and the opportunity they create for UK economic benefit.

Michael Warren

Strategic Policy Advisor, BIA

Michael joined the BIA in September to lead our policy and public affairs work on Brexit. He has extensive experience spanning a wide range of senior government and communications roles, most recently as a member of the executive team at Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency.