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CEO Update - 7 May 2024
SynBioBeta Week
It’s SynBioBeta week and the UK engineering biology community is out in force in San Jose, California. The BIA is leading a coalition of UK stakeholders to showcase the dynamism and innovation of the UK's companies at SynBioBeta 2024, the world's leading conference for engineering biology. The UK will be the second largest delegation at SynBioBeta this year, thanks to support from the UK Government, an innovation mission from Innovate UK, and coalition building from the BIA. More on who is going and what’s on.
Local election results in
Particular congratulations to Claire Ward (as a fellow former trade association leader in our sector) on her election as the first directly elected Mayor of the East Midlands. It was just one of a series of local electoral contests across the UK whose results were declared over the weekend (read full coverage on the BBC site).
My judgement is that because there has been no effective rebellion against Prime Minister Rishi Sunak from within his party, despite the poor results for the Conservatives, we are more likely to have an autumn election than a summer one. For Labour, the results are heartening and show voting reflects the polling we are seeing at present. We now know the key regional figures to engage with including re-elected Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Andy Burnham in Manchester.
Innovation Map 2024
Ahead of the BIA Start-up Festival, we’ve refreshed our Innovation Map for 2024. It’s aimed at entrepreneurs in life sciences, who come across a wide range of organisations that offer to support or grow your business in the UK. This tool is designed to help navigate this space by collecting all incubators, accelerators, training programmes and other support with a life science touchpoint in one place, allowing quick comparison and enabling focus on further investigation. We hope you find it useful. If you have any feedback, especially if you are aware of an organisation you'd like to see included, please email Sam Cruickshank.
Deaf Awareness Week – take action today
It’s Deaf Awareness Week (6-12 May) and we are working with our 2024 charity partner RNID to help workplaces become more deaf aware. If you want to shape a more inclusive workplace culture and demonstrate your commitment to diversity and inclusion get involved today and access a complimentary Digital Pack filled with engaging content ideas, team activities and resources. You can also order (as we have done at BIA) a bespoke plaque featuring your company’s name in British Sign Language (BSL) and book a free remote Deaf Awareness Training if you're a BIA member (limited spots available, book now!).
AMR
It’s shaping up to be a busy month in AMR policy as nations prepare for the World Health Assembly. We’ll be keeping an eye out for new initiatives in this space – especially those that help commercial development of novel antibiotics.
As this agenda takes a prominent space, we are hosting a webinar this Thursday at 11 am "AMR New Horizons – Solutions to the threat of antimicrobial resistance." Our webinar will look at how our sector can increase public awareness to help change behaviour through patient storytelling, as well as continuing to work on new funding streams for the development of drugs and diagnostics, innovative reimbursement models to change the risk-reward profile and encourage pharma and biotechs and their investors to invest R&D to identify novel drugs and game-changing diagnostics. Sign up to join the conversation.
MHRA AI-Airlock and international recognition framework for medical devices welcomed
It was interesting to see Laura Squire, MHRA’s Chief Quality and Access Officer posting on the MedRegs blog about the MedTech regulatory reform – international recognition, IVDs and AI.
We noted that the MHRA is planning to launch the AI-Airlock, a new regulatory sandbox for AI developers, and publish its statement of policy intent for international recognition of medical devices and in vitro diagnostics (IVDs) in the coming weeks. The BIA provided feedback on the draft policy statement and overall supports the proposed international recognition framework. Reducing duplication of assessments conducted by comparable regulators from the USA, the EU, Australia and Canada will enable regulatory resource and manufacturer resource to be focused on more innovative products for the benefit of patients.
UK leaders sprinkled through TIME
It is great to see a number of BIA members and sector leaders recognized in TIME magazine - see who made the list - TIME100 Health.
Women in Biotech in Scale Space at Imperial tomorrow night
It’s not too late to join us in West London tomorrow evening for an inspirational panel and fantastic networking over a glass of something cold with a super supportive and friendly Women in Biotech community. This event is open to all but with a maximum of two tickets per organisation.
We are returning to Scale Space – collaborating this time with Imperial Enterprise Lab to celebrate 10 years of the WE Innovate programme. In that time, the programme has supported over 500 women who have gone on to raise more than £37.5 million for their ventures.
The evening will hear from female founders – exploring their journeys, challenges and successes. We will also discuss the vital role that Universities need to play in ensuring that we support and encourage female founders in STEM in order to increase the number of successfully funded female-led startups, assist in overcoming barriers and combat sector underrepresentation. Book your ticket.
Steve Bates OBE
CEO, BioIndustry Association