UK Biotech ‘Needs Entrepreneurial Scientists’

The UK government recently announced a bold plan to boost the UK’s life sciences sector, with ambitions to create four £20 billion life science companies over the next decade.

Writing for Labiotech, Dr Mark Hammond said that what’s set out in the life sciences strategy is a great start, but it’s not likely to be enough to achieve the government’s ambitions.

The reason is that the government’s strategy is focusing on what Dr Hammond describes as “very traditional later stage investments in partnerships and relocating R&D”. However, he notes that more needs to be done to promote venture creation from the ground up.

“We’re going to need a lot more entrepreneurial scientists with the space to create, derisk and grow,” he asserted.

Dr Hammond also offered a number of suggestions as to how the UK can promote this kind of entrepreneurship among scientists.

Among them is to find a way to encourage early-stage investors in biotech to think big from the beginning, and giving scientists and researchers a space to think outside of academia.

He concluded that, without doing more at the earliest stages of the sector to help feed the later-stage pipeline, creating the four £20 billion life science firms will be challenging.

The UK government published its life sciences strategy in August of this year, with Sir John Bell having put forward proposals for the sector deal in the Industrial Strategy green paper.

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