Congratulations to all the winners at the Life Sciences Awards in Glasgow last night. I hope you all enjoyed a Triple Helix with Des Clarke later.
It’s great to celebrate success in any business sector, and in life sciences there is much to celebrate. Dave Tudor of GSK and Professor Dame Anna Dominiczak of the University of Glasgow articulated this well.
The slide used by Anna (excuse the informality) summed it up best – Brag all you want, the world deserves to hear about the life sciences work being done in Scotland.
In other words, don’t be shy – speak up, shout out, tell people why Scotland is one of the best places in the world to set up or scale up a life sciences business.
There will be celebration at the annual life sciences conference on 12th November at the TIC building at Strathclyde University – but there will also be a recognition of the significant challenges ahead. It’s not just about Brexit, but around those perennial issues that matter to all businesses: funding for growth at every stage; finding the right people to take you to the next level; protecting your brand; understanding the challenges of regulation and tax differentials…and much more.
Last year’s conference was an opportunity to look at the Life Sciences Scotland strategy and outline its central aims. This year is a chance for the whole life sciences industry to come together to discuss where we are, whether we are making progress and whether that progress is fast enough to meet the highly ambitious £8 billion target by 2025.
We’re delighted that Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer Catherine Calderwood will speak about the crucial relationship between industry and the NHS, while Dave Tudor (as co-chair of the Industry Leadership Group) will return to give his state-of-the-sector tour de force. There will also be a series of speakers tackling those direct issues around funding, skills, leadership and more which matter to SMEs looking to start up and scale up.
More speakers will be added and the full agenda confirmed in the coming weeks.
Have a look at the conference site, book an early place and join the conversation by clicking here!
Post by David Lee – The Scotsman Conferences