Life Science Innovation: Local Ecosystem or Global Village?

As planning for ON Helix 2024 on 4 July 2024 at the Babraham Research Campus progresses (https://www.onhelix.com/ ), one of the keynote sessions will discuss what innovation looks like in the 'global village' of today's life science R&D environment. It seemed like timely juncture therefore to post Allicia Gailliez's summary of a panel last year focussed on the pros and cons of a physically local ecosystem dynamic. Key thoughts out of that session included thoughts on the importance of having a university at its core; the attraction of key talent and benefits of finding kindred spirits. Explained in more detail below it feels a good place to start considering the pros and cons of the other side of that coin and happily receive thoughts on this continuing conversation.

So as a starting point:

"When Do Good Neighbours Become Good Partners?"

by Alicia Gailliez, One Nucleus.

The panel discussion ‘When Do Good Neighbours Become Good Partners?’ was the closing panel for ON Helix 2023. The panelists were James Fry, Partner and Head of the Life Science practice at Mills & Reeve; Claire Thompson, Founder and CEO at Agility Life Sciences; Michael Anstey, Partner at Cambridge Innovation Capital; Laragh Jeanroy, Managing Partner at RSM and Laura Lane, Vice President – Lilly Ventures (Europe Head) at Eli Lilly & Co. Moderated by Mike Ward, Head of Global Thought Leadership in Life Sciences at Clarivate, the panel engaged in lively debate on the importance of a strong network for fueling innovation in Life Sciences. Furthermore, it explored whether everyone should be looking to build these connections at home or further afield.

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The panel session opened around a topic that is regarded by many as one of the most essential components in the local Cambridge ecosystem, the academic core. Mike asked the panel to consider the advantages of having a university and other esteemed institutions as local neighbours and their role in creating businesses. Claire kicked off the discussion by acknowledging that Cambridge has world leading research and is vital to entrepreneur support through tech transfer, despite concerns around the resource limitations in tech transfer in UK universities (a reputation that is improving). The Cambridge ecosystem is distinct in that it is leading in many fields such as Life Sciences, engineering and artificial intelligence. It was no surprise, therefore, that Claire identified a “mini cluster” effect which remains a challenge in the local ecosystem. There was a question of how we could enhance connectivity among these silos more, and to this point Claire identified One Nucleus and collaborators such as Connect Health Tech , and Innovate Cambridge as initiatives that are already supporting this sort of collaboration.

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Delving further into the matter of efficiency in tech transfer, the panel overall was less concerned about this aspect. Laura acknowledged that “creating new companies is difficult” and Michael pitched some very enlightening statistics comparing Cambridge Enterprise’s performance to MIT, a high benchmark in tech transfer. The two institutions showed a comparable number of patent applications and companies created in the previous year. On a separate note, Michael questioned the myth that tech transfer requesting higher stakes in start-ups was hindering funding opportunities in the UK.

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Mike moved the discussion to focus on having the right mix of skills available locally to support growing companies. Laragh explained that “the talent that you need at the beginning may not be the talent that you need all the way through”. This may present a challenge for an ecosystem such as the “Golden Triangle” where we are fantastic at research and less effective at commercialisation. Furthermore, our good neighbours may not always be close to us because attracting talent from further geographical locations could promote knowledge exchange and help us improve at commercialisation.

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This comment caught the attention of Mike who expressed a controversial view that lack of scale-up in the UK could be due to impatience among investors. As a result, the panel discussed this issue in greater depth with Michael defending the view that the real cause was the shortage of capital in the UK. Laura expanded further mentioning the restricted commercialisation environment in the UK compared to the US. From this perspective, one could argue that it is the Government who is not acting as a good neighbour. For example, recent news such as Global pharma groups Eli Lilly and AbbVie withdraw from UK’s branded medicines voluntary scheme is a worrying indicator that the UK market could become less attractive.

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James who heads a fast-growing Life Science law practice, highlighted that collaboration can be a great way for companies to acquire new skills and build resource as they grow. Good examples of this would be in the instance of clinical trials and manufacturing when smaller companies can leverage collaborations to access the right expertise, but also to save on costs. These sorts of collaborations may be further afield and therefore, collaboration on a global level is very important. James stressed the point that collaborations can play an important role in helping companies to pivot.

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Mike moved to the topic of how to find the right partner. In response, Laura firstly spoke about “what it means to be a good partner”, leading the conversation towards the role of outsourcing in providing access to innovation. Laura listed four essential components that Lilly provides to support development of new therapeutics including money, space,

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