In June 2009, D2M produced a document for Office for Life Sciences (OLS) relating to the development of life science super clusters within the North West. Focussing on the regional clinical, academic and research strengths in the North West, the document was used as the basis to inform discussions surrounding recommendations for funding requests from the OLS. D2M responded rapidly to produce a detailed document and summary report within two weeks, which were both presented back to the Director of Bionow. The document was then used to form the North West response to the OLS, and ultimately contributed to the OLS paper “Life Sciences 2010: Delivering the Blueprint”, which is available at:
http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/corporate/docs/l/10-542-life-sciences-2010-delivering-the-blueprint.pdf
The OLS response was led by a coordinating group of Dr John Stageman (AstraZeneca and Chair of Bionow), Professor Ian Kimber (Manchester University), Professor Munir Pirmohamed (Liverpool University), Dr Linda Magee (COO of MAHSC) and Dr Geoff Davison (Director of Bionow, NWDA), the overseeing group that contributed to past and continuing developments include: Dr Sharon O’Kane (Co-founder and former Chief Scientific Officer, Renovo and member of the BIGT RR Committee under OST); Professor John Caldwell (Dean of Medicine, Liverpool University); Dr Martin Gibson (Greater Manchester CLRN Director); Professor Kevin Wilson (Merseyside and Cheshire CLRN Director); David Cottier (CEO, MDI, Representative for Medical Devices on the Bionow Steering Committee); Dr Crawford Brown (CEO, Eden Biodesign); Keith Chantler (Director, TrusTECH); Alison Tonge (Director of Health System Development, NHS North West); Dr Martino Picardo (Managing Director, University of Manchester Incubator Company); Mike Deegan (Chief Executive, NHS North West); Tony Bell (Chief Executive, Liverpool Royal Infirmary).
The region has seen a considerable growth in the development of clinical research and healthcare support infrastructure, and is now host to a number of national clinical and regulatory bodies including the national coordinating centre for the Medicines for Children Clinical Research Network (MCRN), the national co-coordinating centre for the Mental Health Research Network (MHRN), the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) and the National Technology Adoption Centre.
England’s North West is one of the UK’s top three biomedical clusters, which includes the biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and healthcare industries. This is based on multiple multinational pharmaceutical companies, a rapidly expanding biotechnology community, major healthcare companies a growing healthcare technology sub-cluster and internationally renowned academic and clinical research strengths. England’s North West has been recognised as a member of the ‘European Super League’ of biotech clusters by Strategem, and in the top 50 in the world by Boston Consulting.
The regional sector is supported by the North West Development Agency’s Bionow Cluster Programme which was established in-house and launched in 2000. It was recognised as an example of ‘best practice’ in cluster development as early as 2001 by DTI (now BIS).
The region has more than 350 companies in the biomedical cluster, including seven multinational pharmaceutical companies, employing in excess of 20,000 people and pharmaceuticals production generates the UK’s leading positive balance of trade of £2.4 billion. The North West boasts:
The cluster is the people, the organisations and the companies within it. We have some great people, a tremendous “can do” attitude and a real desire to succeed.
