Plans Afoot To Grow Scottish Life Sciences Sector To £8 Billion By 2025
Date posted:
News
The life sciences sector in Scotland has been expanding significantly since 2010, employing more than 37,000 people across 700 organisations or so – and now plans have been put forward to help grow industry turnover to £8 billion come the year 2025.
The 2017 Life Sciences Strategy intends to harness what the sector has achieved in the last couple of years to help further investment in the sector. In the last three years, Scotland has seen £300 million invested industry-wide, with companies including Quotient, Piramel Healthcare, GSK, Capsugel, Johnson Matthey and ThermoFisher Scientific.
Data from 2014 shows that company turnover exceeds £4.2 billion with gross value added approximately £2 billion. Between 2010 and 2014, turnover was seen to increase by 29 per cent, with total employment in companies up by 13 per cent.
Vice-president of primary supply chain at GSK and the industry chair of Life Sciences Scotland Dave Tudor noted that now is a very exciting time for life sciences companies in Scotland. What is now required is alignment and focus throughout the industry as the Working Groups is created to help coordinate and plan the delivery of this new strategy.
“The sector has delivered a strong performance in recent years and is a key driver of innovation in Scotland with a particularly strong employment impact in and around Scotland’s cities, and that is why it is vital we continue to provide a supportive environment for business growth and fulfil our ambitions to be a world-leading entrepreneurial and innovative nation,” Paul wheelhouse, minister for business, innovation and energy, added.
He went on to note that EU nationals who do live in Scotland and work in this sector help support the economy to a great degree and, as such, the Scottish government is now exploring all ways that the country can continue to retain the benefits of being part of the EU.
It’ll certainly be interesting to see what happens to the life sciences sector – and others in the UK – once we do leave the EU. MPs have just this week (February 1st) voted to give the government the authority to trigger Article 50 with a majority of 384, which means that the EU (notification of withdrawal) bill will pass to the next parliamentary stage. Some 47 Labour MPs voted against it, alongside seven Lib Dems, 50 SNP MPs and one Conservative MP, Ken Clarke.
Article 50 itself sets out the provisions for countries that do decide to leave the EU, as part of the Treaty of Lisbon. The terms of the exit process are relatively vague, however, which means that long negotiations are likely in order to work out the terms of any deal for departing member states. Once Article 50 is invoked, there will be a two-year window to discuss the trade terms and more, including whether or not exiting nations will still have access to the single market.
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