Foreword from Steve Bates OBE Chief Executive Officer, BioIndustry Association

The UK’s strength in life sciences – and genomics in particular – has never been more evident. Our genomic surveillance of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, cornerstoned by the world-leading Wellcome Sanger Institute, has led the way worldwide throughout the pandemic. With the emergence of new variants in the UK and elsewhere, the importance of strong genomic capabilities has escaped few.

Beneath the high-profile headlines however, there is a hive of activity developing new innovations that extend far beyond COVID-19 and promise to change healthcare as we know it. These innovations are driven by the UK’s rapidly growing genomics ecosystem: start-ups and SMEs; scaling companies; active investors; world-leading academics; a strong skills-base; unique data resources; leading research institutes; and the NHS, all joined together by their mission to improve patients’ lives.

The ecosystem builds on the UK’s long legacy in genomic research, but we would not be where we are today without long-term public investment into the sector by successive governments. Major initiatives such as the 100,000 Genomes Project and the UK Biobank are fundamental pillars of the UK’s genomics ecosystem today. The Government is right to continue building on our global competitive advantage both through new world-leading initiatives such as Our Future Health, and through strategies such as Genome UK and the newly launched Life Sciences Vision.

The Vision recognises that the UK is in a unique position to leverage the capabilities in our genomics ecosystem to drive economic growth as the country recovers from the pandemic. The new £200m Life Sciences Investment Programme is a sign of the Government’s commitment to this agenda, and it has already helped attract an £800m commitment to UK life sciences from the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala. This wave of new public and private investment promises to unlock a new era of genomic innovation and economic growth. As this report shows, start-ups and SMEs are the key drivers of this innovation and growth, and are essential partners to truly delivering the promise of genomic technologies.

The BioIndustry Association (BIA), as the UK’s trade association for innovative life science organisations, the Medicines Discovery Catapult (MDC), as the UK’s catapult centre for medicine research and innovation, and the Wellcome Sanger Institute, as the UK’s leading genomics research institute, are proud to celebrate our genomics sector together by publishing this report. It shows the shape and size of the UK’s genomics sector, describes the foundations that are key to its success, and outlines the tremendous opportunity that the sector represents for the wealth and health of the UK.

I hope it will serve to inform and excite potential new investors and the policy makers that are key to the ongoing growth of genomics in the UK, and I hope you all enjoy reading it.

Foreword from Adrian Ibrahim Head of Technology Transfer and Business Development, Wellcome Sanger Institute

The UK has a peerless heritage as a genomics pioneer. The work of Watson and Crick at Cambridge – building upon Maurice Wilkins’ and Rosalind Franklin’s X-ray diffraction studies at King’s College London – led to the elucidation of the DNA double-helix structure. John Sulston’s vision to map the human genome, initially applying technology developed by Fred Sanger, led to the establishment of the Wellcome Sanger Institute which was the single largest contributor to the Human Genome Project, mapping a third of the entire genome.

The UK continued to lead the world with its vision to generate whole genome sequences in the hundreds of thousands, and subsequently millions, through the formation of Genomics England, exploiting the massively parallel sequencing technology developed by Shankar Balasubramanian and colleagues. Most recently, the UK has demonstrated its world-leading capabilities through the astounding achievements of the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium (COG-UK), which is mobilising public, private and charitable research sectors to pioneer large-scale, real time whole-genome sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 to understand viral transmission and evolution, and to inform public health responses and vaccine development.

We have, however, lagged our academic peers in major research hubs such as California and Boston when it comes to converting our exceptional research into the discovery, development and ultimately  commercialisation of genomic technologies. We are now beginning to redress this imbalance.

At Sanger, we continue to drive large scale genomics research such as the Human Cell Atlas, which aims to create comprehensive reference maps of all human cells and has the potential to impact almost every aspect of biology and medicine. Through a combination of public and private investment, the UK has grown an impressive base of genomics SMEs with Europe’s largest genomics cluster based at the Wellcome Genome Campus and many other companies distributed across the UK. Additionally, we have seen successful scaling of UK genomics companies, supported by growing investor appetite – though more needs to be done in this space.

The current wave of innovation across sequencing, quantum computing, disease modelling, artificial intelligence and genome manipulation creates ever more opportunities to grow the UK’s position as a genomics powerhouse. Our world leading academia, a heightened focus on entrepreneurship, exceptional genomics data infrastructure, governmental support for the life science sector, increasing availability of risk capital and of course, our exceptional NHS, collectively create a unique and enviable platform for the UK to exploit technology advances and drive economic growth through disruptive innovation in the genomics sector. Alignment across our capabilities will ensure that our genomics industry is regarded as world leading, and that the UK is the preferred destination for genomics investments.

Foreword from Professor Chris Molloy Chief Executive Officer, Medicines Discovery Catapult

Genomics is a foundation stone of modern Medicines Discovery. Our ability to identify disease linkages, select cohorts of potential patients and validate new drug targets is now unprecedented.

The UK has deployed these powerful tools at scale across academia and the NHS. We have the opportunity to learn, apply and benefit from these deployments to drive wealth and health across the UK. We also have the responsibility to use them safely and efficiently, recognising their limitations and enabling other techniques to follow a path into widespread clinical and industry use.

We have the responsibility to make consented and relevant linked datasets and bio samples available to those who can create material benefit for patients by driving better diagnostics and drugs, founded on relevant genetic information. From its HQ in the North West, MDC continues to industrialise and drive the adoption of new multi-omic technologies for the benefit of drug discovery innovators, patients and technology firms nationwide.

Emblematic of this has been its role in the co-ordination of the Lighthouse Lab network of PCR COVID-19 labs as part of the UK’s pandemic response. This has brought together the NHS, academia and industry to deliver the largest diagnostics lab project in UK history; deploying a clinically relevant, genomically-driven patient testing system at massive pace and scale – and passing all positives smoothly into sequencing at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. It is a high-profile example of how the UK can team up and benefit from technology when there is a collective goal, with shared expertise, purpose and perspective.

MDC’s core ability to translate tools and techniques into products and services helps to achieve this and provides much-needed access to these early-stage tools for biotechs, drug-hunting academics, diagnostics companies and technologists. We should celebrate the progress made and opportunities created, whilst remaining relentless in our pursuit of further progress in order to do more for the patients and innovators who rely on us.