7th December 2011

Medilink UK response to Davis Camerons speech at FT Conference

 More Nuts and Bolts less Bells and Whistles

MedilinkUK welcome the emphasis placed upon this important sector of the economy and its capacity and look forward to reading the details of both the Office of Life Sciences Autumn report and the Nicholson Innovation Review however looking over the highlights of the speech and subsequent guidance notes we as an industry support organisation are concerned at an over emphasis on clinical research as a means of delivering growth in life science industries. The government have gone for big eye catching initiatives that court new investment in bio/pharmaceutical research and discovery yet again and in doing so have got themselves into the “use of patient data” conflict played out in the media. Whilst stimulating new product development is important to the life science industry by the PMs own admittance the impact of such developments will not resound within our economy for the five to seven years it takes them to be developed.

We need growth in the short term within our industry, in brief we need to sell more products and services so we can create more wealth, pay more taxes and generate more jobs. We need to grow the small companies to be medium sized companies and the SME companies to grow to become large industries. This growth will be achieved by removing barriers to trade, reducing red tape and regulation, promoting adoption and dispersal of UK products in to the UK healthcare system, encouraging companies to access new markets globally and providing access to working capital for expansion.

Medilink UK ‘s members will be far more interested in what the PM had to say about the Nicholson’s reviews take on the adoption and procurement of technology and how government will support industry to identify and commercialise new market opportunities such as tele-health and tele-medicine and look forward to the detail on how particularly how SME’s will be supported