4th December 2015

UK HealthTech reaches new heights

UK HealthTech opened its doors for the fourth time on 1st December at the St David’s Hotel and Spa in Cardiff. The conference was delivered by MediWales and attracted hundreds of professionals, clinicians and industry specialists from around the world.

The programme was comprised of two parallel seminar streams; MedTech and BioPharma, and included an essential annual sector briefing for the life science community, with key themes including innovation adoption, accelerating access for new medicine, precision medicine and diagnostics.

Following last year’s highly international delegation, UK HealthTech’s international partner, UK Trade & Investment, led global connectivity this year. Trade managers from around the world were in attendance, including representatives from Central Eastern Europe, Ecuador, Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

EEN Wales delivered an expert brokerage event during the day, with one-to-one partnering sessions for delegates. The personal meetings provided delegates with the opportunity to engage with potential collaborative partners and build new working relationships with the wider life science community.

The conference also played host to the launch of the Natural Compounds Special Interest Group, a forum that will be used to discuss and support the development of natural products for health, wellbeing and disease management. The group aims to share advice on clinical trials, develop routes to market and ensure that findings from research environments transfer into products.

Keynote speakers in the opening session were John Jeans, Life Science Champion and advisor to UK Government, Dr Mark Treherne, Chief Executive of UK Trade & Investment, and Professor Karol Sikora, CMO of Proton Partners and Dean of University of Buckingham Medical School.

The morning seminars included regulatory updates on the medical device directive and IVD directive, an NHS perspective on market access and UK procurement, and discussions around patient centred healthcare and regulation of the supply chain.

During the lunch hour and breaks, the exhibition was thriving and delegates were able to see a live technology demonstration from the Canadian app developers behind MABLE, a comprehensive care management system for people under care, as well as their caregivers, to connect, get organised, reminisce and stay safe.

Following lunch, the keynote speakers were Dr Bogdan Milojkovic, Head of Health and Public Affairs from Roche Diagnostics UK, Ally McInroy, Marketing Manager at Renishaw plc and Dr Dani Thomas, Medical Director of Immunology and Inflammation at Celgene UK and Ireland.

The afternoon seminar sessions featured a discussion on clinical innovation and meeting the unmet need, accelerated access to new medicines, funding for R&D and clinical trials and fundraising for the life science industry.

A selection of the latest editions of UK Lifescience Industry magazine were distributed at UK HealthTech, featuring the themes of enhancement, future watch, made in the UK, meeting the unmet and going global, whilst showcasing the success of life science organisations across Great Britain. Edition 10 included lead stories on exploring Europe’s life science landscape and detailing the best of the UK’s health technology companies at the Medilink UK Awards.

UK HealthTech is a uniquely collaborative event, made possible through our close relationship with UK partners including UKTI, EEN, ABHI, BIVDA, KTN, CEBR, Medilink UK and United Life Sciences.

Keep up with our twitter feed to see more from the day: @UKHealthTech #UKHT2015