Biotech boom: industry leaders to convene in Oxford
This year’s 4th Global Innovation Forum Leaders Conference will bring together biotech innovators, investors and policymakers from across the world to the Saïd Business School, Oxford.
The UK is already considered the third largest global life-sciences cluster, supporting over 482,000 UK jobs, although there are concerns from UK scientists and small businesses being shut-out of EU wide Horizon 2020 funding which could also discourage attracting global talent to Britain.
Dr Maxine Allen, head of business development and partnering for the Medical Sciences Division at Oxford University, has been supporting the Innovation Forum with this year's flagship event. Dr Allen said: "Oxford University values the power of external partnerships to advance our research goals. We work closely with companies, the NHS and investors to support the translation of our innovations into new medicines, products and services to drive wealth creation and economic growth. I am happy to support the Innovation Forum, as I believe they encourage conversations between like-minded people in this exciting field and help to nurture the next generation of entrepreneurially inclined scientists.”
Executive chairman of The Innovation Forum, Dr Marek Tyl said: “The Innovation Forum is a fantastic opportunity for both budding entrepreneurs and established companies to network and build new collaborations. We are very fortunate to have some renowned industry experts and leading academics at this event and we hope the delegates will take full advantage of that, building new partnerships and securing investments for their exciting science ventures”.
Opening the conference, Lord David Willetts, former minister for universities and science, will discuss ‘the global innovation agenda’, followed by Dr. Yong Jun Liu, global head of research at Sanofi, who will look into the future and examine where bio innovation can take us in 20 years.
On day two of the conference, Dr. Jonathan Milner, deputy chairman and co-founder of Abcam, serial entrepreneur and philanthropist will deliver a keynote focusing on investing in people and ‘how to build a company culture’.
In addition, the conference also features a pitch final of the Imagine If! startup accelerator, with science and technology seed-level enterprises as well as the opportunity for one-to-partnering.
Companies already confirmed to attend the conference include leading pharmaceutical corporations like Johnson & Johnson, Sanofi, Genentech as well as biotech and life science businesses including Immunocore and BenevolentAI.
The conference will be held on the 4th-5th of December 2017. To apply to attend visit www.inno-forum.org/if2017