Med-Tech Innovation News caught up with newly appointed Medilink Midlands chief executive Simon Himsworth to discuss his vision and the challenges likely to be faced by the company and life sciences as a whole in the immediate future.
Gavin White Gavin White Photography Group
Congratulations on the new role, but first if you could introduce yourself to our readers?
Thank you. For the past 6.5 years I’ve been working with global biopharma organisations, helping them to solve industry wide common challenges, and delivering industry-wide transformation programmes. Pre-pandemic it meant a lot of travelling globally, primarily in the US and bringing knowledge and experience across the globe together to solve common industry-wide problems affecting all organisations and their respective supply chains.
I’ve spent over 25 years leading the design and delivery business support and other organisational change programmes in both the public and private sectors. Before working in a global role, I’ve worked extensively in both the East and West Midlands and it’s great to be returning to my home region, and to continue working within in life sciences. I’ve been made very welcome within Medilink Midlands and I’m looking forward to leading the organisation into its next chapter.
A new CEO inevitably comes with a new vision, what ideas can you share with us that you have for Medilink Midlands?
Medilink Midlands has been a great champion to the life science sector and has shown remarkable resilience over the years, adapting to changes whilst maintaining the quality support for the sector. I want to see Medilink Midlands maintain that purpose and adapt to a new landscape post EU and pandemic. It’s very much about evolution not revolution, and I wish to continue our great work of supporting the industry and build on this with regional, national, and global partners across both the public and private sectors, by connecting and facilitating collaboration and industry support between academics, government, businesses, and clinicians.
What main challenges do you think the industry has to grapple with in the short-to-medium term?
Coming new into the organisation, it’s great to be able to see things from afresh and from a wider perspective. One of my main missions in my first month as chief executive is to engage with key individuals and their organisations in the region to build up that wider picture and to listen to the needs of the region.
Whilst there is the great opportunity for growth within the sector it needs to be supported by strengthening the technical workforce. The task of upskilling our existing workforce whilst continuing to nurture the next generation of STEM talent, will be a challenging one; which requires a collaborative approach from across the industry and government.
The big challenge that isn’t going away is Brexit and the issues around supply chain and export and divergence between EU and UK regulatory systems. Companies are currently left to figure this out themselves with no clear answers and it’s going to be some time before things settle down. Client goodwill is at stake for many companies. Coupled with the rise in energy and raw material costs, we may see companies struggle. This presents an opportunity for us, ensuring we are at the forefront of delivering direct support to our industry.
What challenges do you identify specific to Medilink Midlands that you are high on your priority list to tackle?
The key challenges for Medilink Midlands are continuing to champion and support our membership base and the wider regional life sciences industry amongst an uncertain funding landscape. We have the skills, the knowledge and expertise to deliver fantastic industry support and engaging thought leadership. We have seen how crucial this sector has been during the pandemic, and we need to ensure that as EU structural funding ends, life science companies in the Midlands are supported to continue their world leading research, development, and innovation. Therefore, high on my priority list is engagement with national and local government and industry thought leaders to ensure that the necessary support and correlating funding continues to flow into the sector.
As an organisation, we now have formed one team that brings representation right across the Midlands. I’m working with my team to ensure that we able to cross-pollenate our sector knowledge and experienced advisors so that all corners of our region benefit from the best insight and knowledge, and that we can deploy specialist skills and our resources to where it is needed in every part of the region. We will continue to be the regional delivery organisation to the life sciences sector, with specialist deployable advisory and events teams.
We will continue to look at the specific needs for each of our clients and activities, ensuring that they are locally relevant and address priorities; one size may indeed not fit all. The delivery of our support will be able to be more flexible, our connectivity and insight will have further reach, and our membership value will be increased.
The last couple of years have seen many changes, notably with COVID and Brexit, what changes have you seen that the lay person perhaps won’t have done with life sciences?
COVID has brought the Life Science industry to the forefront. It has highlighted the importance of this sector and the impact that many Midlands based companies have had on the pandemic response; utilising the expertise, knowledge and skills of region support the NHS.
Speaking with the many stakeholders across the Midlands as part of my introduction as chief executive, it is clear that both the skills agenda and the digitisation of services and technologies has accelerated in order to respond to the pandemic and has highlighted its importance for the future; but has really only scratched the surface of what is possible. Therefore, it is essential to build upon this to ensure we remain at the forefront globally.
Though the UK left the EU in 2020, there has been this almost transition period where the last of the EU funding grants can be spent in the UK, how big a challenge is securing funding to replace that, both for you as a company and for your members?
As ERDF ends, the grant funding situation is still unclear. What is emerging is that we are likely to see a reduction in the amount that is currently available. How we fill that funding void will in turn effect how Medilink Midlands is able to provide the business and Innovation support that has proven so vital to the region’s life sciences industry. So, my key priority, is to understand that funding landscape and to secure the continuation of that support for the sector.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
In summary, the focus of Medilink Midlands will be to evolve our support, events, and membership offerings, which will bring greater value to the region by being able to deploy multiple specialisms across the whole region to where they are needed. I am looking forward to growing our membership offering and for it to become a ‘must have’ for a medtech business with a base in the Midlands. This will enable us to continue to support our medtech and life sciences partner organisations, their innovations, commercial activities and general ‘licences to operate’ within a highly regulated and complex sector. It will enable us to expand our voice of the industry back to central government, particularly The Office for Life Sciences, regional government, the NHS, academia and other valued stakeholders and partners.
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