Business Insight

Thursday January 22 2015

My Grey GrailProfessor’s healthy ageing quest

DOUG TURNBULL OF NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY. PICTURE BY JOHN A CLARKE ARPS

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Welcome

Inside ‘The full spectrum of capabilities’ Bionow summed up by its boss Pages 4-5

Turning bad North news to good Council’s bold bioscience coupPage 10

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Healthy togetherness The North of England is today acknowledged as a powerhouse of life sciences capability on both the national and international scenes – but it has not always been like that. What were once isolated pockets of excel-lence – Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle et al – are now regarded as a cluster to rival the South East in terms of importance to UK plc, and yet another example of the potential of a pan-Northern approach.

Much of the success of the new cohesive attitude can be credited to the Northern Health Science Alliance, the umbrella organisation which has achieved success in bringing together the academic research of the N8 universities, the leading hospital trusts and some 1,000 businesses in the booming commercial sector. (See page 7.)

This has proved to be a true marriage of convenience for all parties, with Bionow – the award-winning, not-for-profit membership organisation – sitting at the heart of the life sciences business community to help smooth the way. (See pages 4 and 5.)

The depth of talent harnessed by both these organisa-tions is truly formidable, with the universities alone creating more than 220 successful patents in the last year along with some 250 spin-off companies.

That is why the North leads in many biomedical disciplines – none more so than in ageing and alleviating the related diseases that only the most fortunate of us are likely to escape. And that is why we have taken a close look at what has been happening at Newcastle University (see pages 2 and 3), which leads the world in ensuring we live not only long but also healthy lives.

If you have never really appreciated the importance of life sciences to your own wellbeing, then you will after reading this issue…

Newcastle University’sdedicated institutewins global attention,reports Mike Cowley

Newcastle upon Tyne, once best known for its pits, is now tap-ping into another rich seam – but one which is certain to have a much longer-lasting

legacy for the proud city. It is creating an unrivalled pool of world-beating exper-tise to help alleviate the problems that will eventually face us all as we get older: age-related diseases.

Ageing is now accepted as the single most important risk factor for conditions such as cancer and dementia, so the need to understand why our bodies dictate this has become paramount in terms of biomedical research. The theory is that, once understood, it opens up the possibil-ity of slowing down the process.

That is why the Institute for Ageing at Newcastle University is increasingly rec-ognised as a global centre of excellence in critical areas such as dementia, arthri-tis, Parkinson’s and liver disease – all of which are health problems associated with living longer, and with the demo-graphic having forced the subject up the political agenda.

This was emphasised recently when the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, announced that Newcastle University had won the right to house the National Centre for Ageing Science and Innovation. The £20 million cheque accompanying that decision was cer-tainly not large in terms of Government handouts – and is being matched by the university itself – but it is seen by many as the start of the Government opening its increasingly tight purse strings to ac-knowledge the groundbreaking work at the university.

Also, as with many awards, it is not so much the money that counts but the prestige that goes with it – the recogni-tion that Newcastle is leading the way in research into ageing.

Such has been the impact of the In-stitute for Ageing’s work that its ramifi-cations have not only been seen on the national and global stages but also closer to home. Newcastle has made a commit-ment to be an “age friendly” city, and a testing ground for treatments and disabil-ity products designed at the university.

Over the last two decades, the univer-sity has been successful in developing a multidisciplinary approach which has re-sulted in a number of breakthroughs in the treatment of age-linked degenerative diseases. These include:�� The development of a brain scan which involves the injection of a chem-ical to provide early identification of the second-most common form of dementia.

�� Research into type 2 late onset diabetes, which indicates it can be reversed by a very low-calorie form of diet.�� A simple test to identify “fatty liver”, a condition which is an early predictor of liver failure.�� A leading role in the international Hu-man Genome Project, which will help identify the link between chronic dis-eases and ageing.The Institute of Ageing is a “virtual

body”, enabling some 700 leading academ-ics and clinicians to work together outside traditional departmental structures to fa-cilitate the multidisciplinary approach. As a result, it has grown well beyond its bio-medical roots and now has an annual re-search programme of nearly £30m, which is being used to tackle three key questions:��Why do our bodies experience the fea-tures of ageing and develop specific ill-nesses as we get older?��How can we age well, living not only longer but with a better quality of life?��How can we address the key economic and social challenges presented by our rapidly ageing society?A major multidisciplinary approach

such as this needs glue to hold it all to-gether, and this can be found in the form of the National Institute for Health Re-search (NIHR) Newcastle Biomedical Research Centre in Ageing and Chronic Disease. The only centre of its type north of Cambridge, it is a partnership between Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Newcastle Univer-sity, and is funded by the NIHR. It has achieved leadership in the field of neuro-science in general and specifically demen-tia within the ageing framework.

“The field of ageing is so broad that you can’t hope to be an expert on all associ-ated chronic diseases,” says centre director Professor Patrick Chinnery, “but we have taken our track record in neurosciences and built on that.

“We are the only NHS Trust / univer-sity partnership recognised by the NHS

as being focused on biomedical research into ageing, taking laboratory research advances and developing them into treat-ments for older patients.”

Although the primary focus was on dementia, it does not start or end there,

as many of the diseases of old age – ar-thritis and liver disease being two – are interrelated. Professor David Burn, the centre’s expert on Parkinson’s disease, has already shown that people suffering from Parkinson’s are six times more likely to go on to get dementia than those who don’t. A consultant at Newcastle Hospitals, as are many of his faculty associates, Profes-sor Burn runs a special Parkinson’s clinic which is one of foremost in the UK.

“What we’re trying to do in terms of research is to look at who is likely to go on to develop dementia,” he says. “If you can do that, it makes trials more cost-effective. Predicting is important.”

The Parkinson’s research at Newcas-tle has already achieved one significant breakthrough, in that it has been discov-

The new age ofold age is here

Professor Chris Day, pro-vice-chancellor of the faculty of medical sciences

Prof David Burn: Parkinson’s expert

Business Insight

At first glance, there seems to be little in common between IVF (in vitro fertilisation) treatments to aid birth and chronic

illnesses brought on by ageing which hasten death. Professor Doug Turnbull, however – a clinical neurologist at Newcastle Univer-sity – knows there is a link, as it involves his passion of over 35 years: mitochondria.

Mitochondria are the “batteries” in cells that create energy. Defective mitochondria can cause around 150 known diseases and one person in every 6,500 is born with, and affected by, such conditions. These include fatal liver failure, stroke-like episodes, blindness, some forms of epilepsy, muscular dystrophy, diabetes and deafness. The condi-tions can also lead to death in early infancy.

Professor Turnbull leads the Well-come Trust Centre for Mitochon-drial Research, which is pioneering IVF treatment to eliminate the hereditary condition before a child is born while looking at how best to alleviate it when occuring in older patients because of life changes.

Newcastle University is one of only three specialist neuroscience centres in the UK to offer a compre-hensive service for both adults and children suspected of or diagnosed as having a rare mitochondrial disease – and it treats patients from around the world.

The group has two research centres – one focusing on the onset due to ageing, the Medical Research Council Centre for Ageing and Vital-ity, while the Wellcome Trust Centre focuses on other patients with mitochondrial disease, including potentially eliminating it.

“One of the things we know is that, as we get older, things stop working,” Professor Turnbull says. “For one, muscles break down. We think that mitochondria play a role in that, as shown when we look at tissues of people in their late 50s and 60s.

“We are interested in trying to promote healthy ageing, so we are looking at mitochondrial changes and how they accumulate and what we can do to stop it – in particular through the benefits of exercise.”

At the other end of the life scale, the group recently attracted

worldwide attention after demon-strating that it is possible to bypass these diseases by replacing defective mitochondrial “batteries” in unferti-lised human eggs – and a change in the law may soon allow the research to be progressed even further. Draft regulations before parliament could, if passed, enable the pioneering IVF-based technique developed at Newcastle to be made available.

Supported by funding from the Wellcome Trust, the new techniques involve transferring the nuclear DNA from the mother – with the characteristics such as height, eye colour and hair colour – into a donor egg which has had the nuclear DNA removed.

Any child born as a result of this technique would have the nuclear DNA from its parents,

but the healthy mitochondria from the donor egg. This would give the mother a much greater chance of giving birth to a healthy child, with the potential to greatly reduce the risk to subsequent generations.

A provision in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act is due to be debated – and, if passed, the new regulations will allow the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority to consider a licence for the technique to be used in Newcastle.

It was one of Professor Turn-bull’s earliest patients – a young RAF recruit – who set him off on his lifelong mitochondria crusade. The patient was admitted suffer-ing severe muscle pain following enforced route marches. “His muscles broke down when he was exercising,” Professor Turnbull recalls.

“He had what seemed like an energy failure in his muscles. It turned out to be faulty mitochon-dria and he eventually returned to the RAF. The treatment in this case was that he was excused enforced marches.”

ered that the way people walk – their gait – is a potential biomarker as to whether or not they will get dementia associated with Parkinson’s. Again the discovery has come as a result of the multidisciplinary approach, which has seen input from a human movement scientist who noted that the variability of strides on either side seemed to be linked to dementia.

It is accepted that Newcastle University would not be in the pre-eminent posi-tion it holds today had it not been for a clutch of leading academics who decided 20 years ago that the way forward was to co-operate with a common objective. These involved included Oliver James, a professor in geriatrics; Ian McKeith, a psy-chiatrist specialising in old age; Jim Ed-wardson, a research scientist; John Bond, a community-based social scientist; and Robert Perry, a pathologist.

It was Professor Perry’s work in per-forming post-mortems in the university’s brain bank – one of only four in the UK approved by the Medical Research Coun-cil and now housing more than 1,000 do-nated brains – which laid the foundations for the university’s reputation in the field of dementia.

Whereas Newcastle initially found itself virtually alone in the field of ageing re-search in the UK – mainly because in the early days it was considered unsexy and the lack of interest meant a lack of fund-ing – this is no longer the case.

Today, the fact that Newcastle leads the field in its sector means it must not only attract top talent but also retain them – a job that falls within the remit of Profes-sor Chris Day, pro-vice-chancellor of the faculty of medical sciences. “We are the only university that majors in ageing,” he says. “Not only do we do more of it than anyone else, it is our major focus.

“We have a complete breadth across all our research – cell biologists, health econ-omists, engineers. We’ve got the track re-cord. So we have an environment which our people simply don’t want to leave.”

He has been helped in this because many of the professors are home-grown talent – or have been on campus for many years – and Geordies have a natural af-finity to their homeland, as do adopted Geordies. And even the most career-minded academic is aware that when you are working for the best, you are better off where you are in terms of progress.

That is why getting the nod for the National Centre for Ageing Science and Innovation has come in handy – and is yet another confirmation that Newcastle is still the place to be in terms of ageing research. “For us, getting the badge was far more important than the money,” says Professor Day. “It showed once again that, when it comes to ageing research and innovation, we are it.”

The £20m from Government has al-ready been earmarked for a new building to be used as a meeting interface where the university’s scientists can show off new gadgets to the local population. “We see it as a place for the coming together

Champion of IVF power to boost the body’s batteries

Prof Turnbull: leading Wellcome Trust Centre for Mitochondrial Research

of people and patients, academics and industry,” Professor Day says, “where prototypes can be tested and then rolled out into Newcastle. It will simply provide an extension for what we do now.”

The development of the new Ageing Centre was led by Professor Louise Rob-inson, director of the Newcastle Univer-sity Institute for Ageing and also a local GP and professor of primary care and ageing at the university. She is the lead primary care advisor on the Prime Min-ister’s nationwide Dementia Challenge, and national clinical champion for de-mentia for the Royal College of General Practitioners.

Professor Robinson was instrumental in ensuring that Newcastle’s pitch for the Ageing Centre hit the spot, in that she was able to illustrate just what having a multidisciplinary approach to ageing research means. She achieved this by showing how older people at risk of fall-ing could be persuaded to wear alarms, when in her work as a GP she found there had been resistance to this. The re-fusal to wear the potentially life-saving devices was because many patients felt that the traditional bulky alarms hung round their necks not only tagged them as vulnerable but were also ugly.

Instead, Professor Robinson showed how the Newcastle technicians had been able to effectively hide the alarm as part of a brooch for women or as a watch for men. “This seemed to go down well,” she says, “as it demonstrated just how far we would go to improve the quality of life for older people suffering from age-related conditions.”

This received formal mention in the official announcement of the award to Newcastle: “It will also have strong com-mercial applications in developing pro-ducts and services aimed at supporting older people and meeting the needs of the older consumer. These could include technologies that can support people to age better, such as exercise and diet

products and services, as well as more user-friendly designs of safety alarms and assisted living equipment to allow older people to live more independently.”

Not that this was the sole reason for the funding decision. “Naturally, they were also well aware of Newcastle’s long-standing reputation in ageing re-search,” Professor Robinson says. “The ageing research models that we’ve start-ed are very much around a biomedical approach to ageing – biologists looking at the reasons why we age and why we develop age-related illness like dementia and stroke.

“That combination of bringing togeth-er biologists and doctors was the start of our very first Institute for Ageing. At that point it was a very novel concept and it helped to put Newcastle on the map.”

So what happens next? “Although we’re living longer, the number of years spent in better health is not increasing,” Professor Robinson says. “Looking at why we age is not going to provide the answer to the problems facing us.

“The aim of the national centre is to take us to the next level. After having scientists and doctors work together at our campus, recently we’ve been work-ing more with engineers to get imme-diate solutions to these problems. This is the way we want to go, as ageing is everyone’s business.

As experts working in the field of age-ing, the Newcastle academics were asked what tips they had for living a healthier life into old age. The answers were hard-ly surprising, with eating healthily, tak-ing exercise and doing nothing to excess topping the advice list.

So are members of the team at New-castle University taking their own ad-vice? Well, it appears they are in terms of exercise at least. “Most of us are either runners or cyclists,” Professor Patrick Chinnery says, “so I guess that shows something.”

Workingnow withengineers... it’s the way we wantto go asageing is everyone’s business

Professor Louise Robinson: initiator

Business Insight

Global BioDiagnostics - Bionow project of the year - sponsored by Waters Corporation�� Commercialisation of REaD™ Human Tuberculosis Point of Care diagnostic assay

This low-cost test has been developed for tuberculosis (TB) and is par-ticularly relevant to the develop-ing world. It can be performed with limited skill and has the backing of the Wellcome Trust and the Gates Foundation. With more than 300 million peo-ple worldwide suffering from TB – of whom 60 per cent are not being diagnosed because of the lack of such a test – this is a breakthrough that offers important benefits for a significant part of the world’s population.

The test utilises a unique biomarker, initially discovered as part of a Gates Foundation project and developed with a translation award from the Wellcome Trust.

Mapmyhealth - Bionow technical service award - sponsored by North West Coast Academic Health Science Network��Mapmydiabetes

Mapmydia-betes was designed in partnership with pa-tients, clini-cians and the NHS to help patients with diabetes manage their condition better. Clinical data already gathered demonstrate the benefits of Mapmydiabetes, both to patients and health-care providers. The product is being assessed in further clinical studies, such as the ongoing trial in collaboration with the Lancaster Health Hub and the North West Coast Academic Health Science Network.

This web-based platform technology recog-nises that the participation of patients in their long-term care is essential, given that NHS resources are scarce. The project was able to demonstrate cost-saving potential and a clear patient benefit in helping people to manage their conditions..

Integral Finance - Bionow business services award - sponsored by Cheshire East Council�� Finance partnering service

In a fiercely contested category, the winner was able to demonstrate the development of a flex-ible and responsive service targeted specifically

at small and medium-sized businesses in this sector. The judges were im-pressed by the flexibility of the service and the partner-ship approach taken.

The company provides highly professional financial support and guidance tailored to deliver robust financial management at an affordable price. Integral Finance was founded in 2012 by Mark Hollingworth, previously a finance director with AstraZeneca.

Credent Medical - Bionow healthcare project of the year - sponsored by Trustech�� Changing lives - a unique non-invasive blood glucose monitor

The project was chosen because it puts patients in charge of managing the serious long-term condition, diabetes. This currently affects 2.9 million people in the UK, with the figure expected to increase to 4 million by 2025. Diabetes is the single largest healthcare cost burden for the NHS: 10 per cent of the total, £9.8 billion per annum, equating to £1.1 million

per hour.Failure to

manage the con-dition currently places huge burdens on NHS resources. Here is a painless test which improves patient compli-ance and enables more frequent testing where necessary. The underlying technology also had protectable IP (intellectual property), and a clear route to market.

HMA/CATCH - Bionow innovative age-ing award - sponsored by MIMIT / Edwards Healthcare�� Suite of mobile apps for the elderly to pro-mote self-care, independence and healthy living

A Yorkshire-based col-laboration between a digital agency, HMA Digital Marketing, and researchers at the Centre for

Business support

The sector’s Northern industrialbase has big pockets of deep specialism... the full spectrum ofcapabilities

Bionow chief executiveDr Geoff Davison tellsMike Cowley about thebody’s aims and growth

Increasingly, Bionow is seen as the most important body representing the booming biomedical and life sci-ences sector in the North of England – and its annual awards are recog-

nised as the premier accolade for the work of outstanding companies.

Dr Geoff Davison, chief executive of Bionow, answers a series of questions from The Times North and provides a comprehensive picture of the pivotal role being played by his company. Bionow is helping to progress an industry which could determine the future prosperity not only of the North but also of UK plc.

What is the history of Bionow and the sec-tor it represents in the North, and how will this shape its plans for 2015?

Bionow was established in 2000 to support, promote and encourage the growth of the biotechnology, pharma-ceutical, medical devices and health technology cluster in the North West. From having recently established Bio-

now as a standalone business, today it is an award-winning, not-for-profit mem-bership organisation sitting at the heart of the Northern life sciences community.

The mission of Bionow is to ensure that the sector in the North continues to thrive – by providing targeted, high-level support to its member companies and organisations. Bionow is focused on the biomedical and life sciences sector and the specialist supply chain.

Bionow’s membership base ranges from very small businesses all the way through to large corporates, and our membership offering focuses on the specific needs of firms at their different stages of develop-ment. These include dedicated business support programmes, shared procure-ment schemes with significant cost sav-ings, exclusive insurance benefits, re-cruitment and training services, local and national events and access to a vibrant network of businesses.

The specialist business support pro-vided by Bionow includes routes to ac-cess the NHS, connections with aca-demia for collaborative research, business accelerator programs, knowledge transfer and support for student placements with connections to experienced mentors who bring a wealth of business experience gained within the biomedical sector.

In addition to the tangible value which members receive, Bionow also facilitates connections within the cluster by bring-ing people and companies together and providing a platform to share news and success. Bionow creates a place and a time to do business, to forge the initial links from which collaborations can grow.

On the broader stage, Bionow is work-ing with other organisations to connect the sector and to build influence at a na-tional level. United Life Sciences (ULS) is a strategic partnership representing over 1,000 life sciences and healthcare organi-sations across the UK and internation-ally. The partnership was formed in 2014 by four founding partners: the BioIndus-try Association, Bionow, BioPartner and One Nucleus.

ULS recently published the UK Life Sciences Manifesto 2015-2020, aimed at all political parties. The manifesto sets out the policy recommendations that ULS and its members believe are re-quired for the health and wealth of the UK during the next parliament.

With more than 240 subscribing mem-bers, Bionow is the fastest-growing life sciences membership organisation in the UK. It is committed to driving innovation in the sector by catalysing the engage-ment of the Northern universities, the

And the Bionow award-winners for 2014 are…

Heart that beats forNorth’s life sciences

NHS and a business base with scale and breadth.

Looking forward, Bionow will continue to consolidate and develop its services to the sector, with a program of high-profile events addressing investment, antimi-crobial resistance, precision medicine, knowledge exchange and partnering – together with the Bionow annual awards which celebrate achievement and com-mercial success.

What is the current and likely impact of the sector on both the Northern and UK econo-mies, and could it help to underpin the bad-ly stretched NHS as peer sectors effectively do in some other countries?

The North represents a significant powerhouse of life sciences capability, with over 1,000 businesses generating a gross value added of £10.9 billion and supporting 38,000 highly skilled jobs. The North is home to close to 25 per cent of the UK biomedical and life sciences sector as measured by numbers of com-panies, employment and turnover, and makes a pivotal contribution to the UK through its distinctive strengths in key areas.

The sector’s Northern industrial base has big pockets of deep specialism in in-dustrial biotechnology, biologics (antibod-ies, therapeutic proteins and vaccines), small molecule therapeutics, wound care, orthopaedics and specialist services in-cluding contract research and contract manufacturing. Importantly, there is the full spectrum of capabilities which enable and facilitate the effective translation of ideas through discovery, development, testing and regulation, design and manu-facture and into patients.

The strength and opportunity within the biomedical sector in the North has been recognised by many international companies which supply products and services into this global market sector.

Business Insight

Assistive Technology and Connected Health-care (CATCH) at the University of Sheffield.

This new approach promotes independence among the elderly and can also be extended to cover the specific needs of people with dementia, and those who struggle with obesity. The winner was able to demonstrate that its approach will result in improved health outcomes, while offering affordability to consumers and cost savings to health and social care providers.

Chargepoint Technology - Bionow product of the year - sponsored by UL EduNeering�� AseptiSafe® bio valve

The Asepti-Safe® bio valve is a patented split butterfly transfer de-vice to move products or components between pro-cesses asepti-cally. The device utilises hydrogen peroxide gas to decontaminate the valve’s product contact faces, achieving a million-fold decrease in biological burden.

The valve has the potential to reduce the costs in the manufacture of drugs, devices, diagnostics and healthcare, in itself a major boon to manufacturing in the Northern cluster.

Dr Olga Kubassova - Bionow promising tech-nologist of the year - sponsored by Novartis Vaccines�� Image Analysis

Inflammation in joint diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis is argued by clinicians and researchers to be the earliest indicator of joint destruction and irreversible change. Dynamika, the software platform de-veloped by Image Analysis, gives an automated and therefore objective answer to whether or not the inflammation in joint disease is present in MRI data. This enables radiologists to make a quick decision to support treatment selection.

Olga Kubassova founded the company to bring her academic research – which led to her PhD – into clinical practice. Last year, the busi-ness secured revenues of over £1m, expanded operations to the US and is currently seeking further finance to grow.

Perfectus Biomed - Bionow start-up company of the year - sponsored by Baker Tilly�� Customised microbiology

Perfectus Biomed Ltd offers customised mi-crobiology with a focus on the treatment and removal of chronic bacterial infections known as biofilms. Perfectus Biomed was able to dem-onstrate a clear business plan, growth in its first year of operation, an increase in the number of

clients serviced, the raising of investment and forecasted con-tinued growth.

The company has identified a niche market for operations together with other specialist applications. Initially focused on biofilms, Perfectus Biomed is now also contributing to medical devices, oral care and supporting the development of improved surface antimicrobials.

Premaitha Health - Bionow investment deal of the year - sponsored by Ludlow Wealth Management Group�� AIM (Alternative Investment Market) listing

The winning deal involved a £10.5m reverse take-over, com-mencement of trading on AIM and fundraising of £7.2m. Premaitha Health is developing a prenatal screening test which will launch this month. The IONA® test is a game-changing diagnostic that analyses foetal DNA from a maternal blood sample to estimate the risk that a foetus may be affected by trisomy 21 (Down’s Syndrome) or other serious genetic diseases.

The company intends to employ around 50 people by the end of this year and its shares are currently trading at more than 30 per cent above the initial listing price.

Advanced Medical Solutions - Bionow com-pany of the year - sponsored by AstraZeneca��Wound care products

The winner was selected in recognition of a company which has grown locally and latterly by acquisition. The mature strategic development and international focus of the business is an exemplar for other companies to develop and grow from within the sector. The winner is a partner to some of the world’s biggest names in wound care, while also developing its own range of advanced wound care products.

The company’s silver alginate dressings are used on chronic wounds at high risk of infec-tion. The patients usually have a significant underlying problem – diabetes, old age, poor circulation or obesity – all of which prevent normal antibiotics reaching the site of infec-tion. Advanced Medical Solutions has a global customer base, a state-of-the-art manufactur-ing plant and European distribution centre at Winsford in Cheshire, and employs over 400 people.

Among others, companies supplying bio-analytical equipment, specialist contract services and laboratory supplies have chosen to locate and inwardly invest in the North in preference to other locations in the UK or Europe, having been drawn by the strong local market and skills base to build a European presence. Recent examples include Actavis, Fujifilm Dio-synth, Hematogenix, Gen-Probe (now Hologic), MedImmune, Qiagen, Thermo Fisher, Waters, Alere and GSK.

The “golden triangle” of Oxford, Cam-bridge and London, with its excellence in discovery and early stage innovation, is fully complemented by the Northern strengths in development and manufac-turing capability. Speke, for example, lo-cated close to the centre of Liverpool, is home to the largest concentration of bio-manufacturing capability in Europe, with specialist manufacturing facilities owned by the multinational companies Eli Lilly, Novartis, MedImmune and Actavis. To-gether they employ over 1,500 people, and 50 million doses of seasonal flu vac-cine are produced each year in Liverpool.

As a result, the North exports over £8.1bn of medicinal and pharmaceutical products – which, annually, represents 47 per cent of all classified UK exports with a balance of trade of £4.7bn.

Where does the UK sit in the global bio-medical league table, and what could Gov-ernment do to help Bionow enhance its position?

The UK has an established status in the worldwide sector, with one-eighth of the world’s most popular prescription medi-cines having been developed here. The UK currently leads Europe in the amount of capital raised and in the number of financing rounds supporting the fourth-largest biotech pipeline in the world.

This is a favourable position, and at the end of 2013 the life sciences sector

in the UK comprised 4,980 companies, employing approximately 176,000 peo-ple and generating a turnover of £52bn. The vast majority of these companies are SMEs (small or medium-sized enter-

prises with fewer than 250 employees), with the overall biomedical “ecosystem” consisting of many SMEs supported by a network of specialist suppliers and a sig-nificant investment base of large global pharmaceutical and health technology companies. These are now utilising new models to de-risk and externalise as-pects of their research and development.

Life sciences companies are particu-larly valuable to the economy, as they employ highly paid and skilled indi-viduals, plus their business is centred on products protected by patents and multiple regulatory authority licences. Once initial product approval is secured, there is the prospect of some ten years of growth and “protected” manufacture.

The scale and diversity of the estab-lished and growing SME base fosters agility, growth and investor confidence, generating significant economic oppor-tunity for the UK. This is underpinned by the UK’s enviable clinical and aca-demic base, which is second globally only to the US on numbers of scientific citations.

The research strength within the uni-versity base is world-class and acts both as anchor and attractor for larger indig-enous and foreign companies which are dependent on leading-edge research and innovation, especially as they instigate externalised models. The N8 partnership between the leading research-intensive universities in the North, and initiatives such as the Northern Health Science Al-liance (see page 7), multiply the impact of these world-leading institutions in the health arena.

The Strategy for UK Life Sciences launched in 2011 identified the key ar-eas on which the current Government would focus, and this has largely been progressed. The appointment in 2014 of George Freeman as the world’s only life sciences minister is hugely beneficial

and further demonstrates Government focus on the sector.

Via United Life Sciences, Bionow has stated clearly what we believe is required through the next parliament to ensure the future health and wealth of the sec-tor. The United Life Sciences manifesto includes recommendations to Govern-ment, covering areas which include:��Maintaining a favourable taxation and financial environment by continu-ing initiatives such as the Biomedical Catalyst, research and development tax credits and the Patent Box.�� Flexible routes for licensing, evalua-tion, uptake and reimbursement.�� Supporting pre-clinical and clinical research.�� Providing the supporting infrastruc-ture, skills and investment needed to enable a competitive, highly special-ised manufacturing sector.�� Enhancing and developing new ini-tiatives to support early access to new treatments.�� Focus on strategically important sub-sectors such as regenerative medicine and cell therapies, systems biology, antimicrobial resistance and precision medicines.�� Supporting and enhancing the special-ist skills requirements of the sector.Finally, there must also be a focus on

supporting the sector in a manner rela-tive to its distribution across the UK. This will ensure that all the important clusters of life sciences activity continue to grow – and organisations such as Bio-now and those which make up United Life Sciences are essential to this.

A particular focus on the North – which represents nearly a quarter of all activity in the sector – is a must, with ad-ditional focus on ensuring the UK works coherently to present itself as a global force in life sciences, both now and in the future.

Hosting an impressive gathering of talent: Bionow chief executive Dr Geoff Davison

Business Insight

Developments

Science alliance’swork attracts big US name for trials here,writes Mike Cowley

A leading California-based biomedical company has chosen the North of England to trial a revo-lutionary ingestible sen-

sor no bigger than a grain of sand. Once swallowed, it transmits infor-mation to clinicians and care-givers about medication, activity and rest patterns.

Proteus Digital Health selected the region because of the work of the Northern Health Science Alli-ance (NHSA), which links the lead-ing N8 universities, eight research-intensive NHS Trusts and a strong partnership with four Academic Health Science Networks.

The breakthrough sensor is made entirely from ingredients found in food and is activated on ingestion, so can be taken alongside medica-tions, capturing the exact time of ingestion. Once swallowed, the body powers the ingestible sensor. It has no battery or antenna, but stomach fluids complete the power source and transmit the unique number generated by the sensor to a patch which is worn on the body and is disposable.

The patch captures and relays the body’s physiological responses and behaviours, having received information on heart rate, activity and rest from the ingestible sensor. The information is then sent to a mobile device.

According to Proteus chief ex-ecutive Andy Thompson, it was the unique level of collaboration within the NHSA which offered the perfect test-bed for a product with worldwide potential, because it will enable better monitoring of patients’ treatment.

This is an indication of the im-portance of the NHSA, which was established to improve the health and wealth of the region by creat-ing an internationally recognised life sciences and healthcare net-work. It also further bolsters the economic importance of the life-style science sector in the North and its contribution to the wider UK economy.

The NHSA covers a patient pop-ulation of over 15 million and acts as a single portal bringing together research, health science innovation and commercialisation, to provide benefits for researchers, universi-

ties, hospitals and patients as well as for commercial partners.

The backbone of the NHSA is the group of N8 universities – Newcastle, Durham, Lancaster, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield and York – with more than 15,000 academic staff in health and life sciences (12 per cent of the UK sector), a research income of £740 million (16 per cent of the UK sector) and 40,000 postgraduate stu-dents (11 per cent of the UK sector).

It also encompasses a strong pro-duction and export market in me-dicinal and pharmaceutical products, with total exports of over £8 billion,

representing 47 per cent of classified UK exports and a balance of trade of £4.7bn.

Current NHSA members have generated around 220 patents in the last ten years, and created over 250 spin-offs from the universi-ties’ research. In addition, the North is home to over 1,000 life sciences businesses, generating a turnover of £10.8bn and supporting around 38,000 high-skilled jobs.

“The UK has a strong history in the life sciences,” says Dr Hakim Yadi, the NHSA chief executive, “but the contribution of the North is of-ten overlooked.”

Until the NHSA was formed in 2012, the North’s life sciences sec-tor was regularly being overlooked in terms of deals in favour of their peers in the higher-profile and better-organised South East. The initiative was led by Professor Ian Jacobs at University of Manchester (and newly appointed vice-chan-cellor of the University of New South Wales), who brought about the realisation that if all parts of the sector collaborated then every-one would benefit.

While the South East and Scot-land had enjoyed recognition as be-ing home to life sciences clusters in the past, the North had only been looked on in terms of its major cen-tres such as Manchester and Leeds. Now the NHSA has changed all that and provides an interface not only for co-operation between the 20 members but also a conduit for inward investment.

Belonging to the NHSA helped Newcastle University get the nod from Government to become the home for the new National Centre for Ageing Science and Innovation (see pages 2-3), and it was because the NHSA was there that Proteus chose the region to test out its in-gestible sensor.

“The major advance we have achieved is to get all the compo-nent parts of the sector to co-op-erate together,” Dr Yadi says. “Now the UK has three major life scienc-es clusters and, in turn, is stronger for it.”

The NHSA’s work has also been noted at Westminster, where de-volution of power to the regions is high on the agenda. “I will be work-ing with the Government to help unlock the role of life and health sciences in the new Northern powerhouse that this Government has committed to delivering,” says George Freeman, the minister for life sciences.

Careful how you go withthat preciouscapital value

Top patch forsuper sensor

Dr Hakim Yadi: co-operation

The NHSA members are from eight cities across the North of England

If your success in the life sciences sector has given you money to in-vest, you will find that risk is not confined to your business life.

All financial advisers will ask you to complete compliance documentation that will include a risk profile questionnaire. This will help you choose specific diversified investments within either a pension or an investment portfolio.

If your contract is income-producing, you need to be aware of the negative sequence of return – reduction in capital value while paying income. Mark Goldstone (right), a leading UK independent financial adviser both for corpo-rate and for individuals across a range of sectors including life sciences, and an acknowledged expert in the field of pensions, investment and inheritance tax planning, explains...

Successful individuals who invest in pension drawdown contracts and various income-producing investments are usually not made aware of the

real risk lurking around the corner – the hidden effect of the negative sequence of return.

This is because income can con-tinue to be taken from a portfolio during periods when markets are in a negative position – and, as most financial advisers model their clients’ portfolios around either passive funds or a complex portfolio of individual investments, these invest-ments are often too rudimentary and offer very little beyond time and value of money calculations.

Financial advisers take into ac-count the relative linear returns offered by most funds (average an-nualised returns), and make clients aware that on an income-producing portfolio any negative rates of return in the markets in which they are in-vested will have a detrimental effect on the overall investment.

This reduction in capital value oc-curs if a client is taking income from a portfolio in a falling market, lead-ing to negative pound cost averaging where the client is essentially forced to sell units in their portfolio when prices are falling in order to pay the required income.

Various providers offer a smooth-ing effect on returns through their cautious managed fund or growth fund, and will allow for a smooth-ing of returns within the objectives of the fund. This in effect becomes less hindered by market peaks and troughs – and, while allowing income to be paid, will sustain a realistic rate of return without necessarily incur-ring negative pound cost averaging that ultimately results in a reduced capital amount.

If you are investing your pension money into a drawdown contract, or personal money into an invest-ment bond to produce income, you must be aware of portfolios that only recommend taking the average an-nualised rate of return into account. This ignores the “client’s capacity for loss”, and a portfolio model should be arranged to take into account the randomness of market conditions in order to safeguard any type of capital investment. �� To contact Mark Goldstone for further information, phone 0161 428 4237 or visit www.mag-financial.co.uk

Successful life sciences business executives face personal as well as professional risk

Business Insight

‘Nexus’ offers stepby step approach,says Sarah Booth

Manchester-based Zilico Ltd recently won its first deal with the NHS to distrib-ute its ZedScan™ sys-tem to Sheffield Teaching

Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The groundbreaking ZedScan™ system of-fers quicker and more accurate detection of cervical neoplasia, delivering results in real time and enabling clinicians to im-prove patient management within the cervical cancer pathway.

Helping to secure the contract was a key milestone for Greater Manches-ter Academic Health Science Network (AHSN) in its quest to support the ar-ea’s small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs). Greater Manchester AHSN was asked to intervene at a crucial stage in the purchase of the ZedScan™ system, and offered expert support and advice on the procurement process and on how to proceed with the sale.

“Greater Manchester AHSN has been helping Zilico to better understand the procurement landscape within the NHS,” says Sameer Kothari, the Zilico chief ex-ecutive. “The AHSN people have hands-on experience in this area and this has been invaluable.”

Greater Manchester AHSN’s first-hand experience and expert knowledge of the NHS added real value to negotiating the Zilico contract, and this collective experi-ence and expertise has been brought to-gether in a unique business solution – the Innovation Nexus.

Launched in October 2014, the Inno-vation Nexus is designed to help compa-nies, particularly SMEs, to understand the steps that have to be taken to support their business planning and how to en-gage more easily with the NHS.

“We know that companies, especially SMEs, can face significant challenges trying to introduce their new and innova-

tive products into the NHS,” says Linda Magee, joint executive director of indus-try and wealth at Greater Manchester AHSN.

“The complexity of public procure-ment, understanding what information the NHS requires for a business case and negotiating what is often a ‘risk-averse’ culture across multiple organisations can be daunting.”

The Innovation Nexus provides infor-mation, access and support – everything businesses need to develop, test and de-liver innovative products and services in collaboration with the NHS. Businesses can access support via www.intohealth.org, where they will find key information to support their development, such as:�� Clinical opinions.�� Trials and evaluation.

Innovative passportto NHS engagement

Greater Manchester AHSN is one of 15 AHSNs across the UK set up to improve popula-tion health and generate economic growth. Its aim is to support Greater Man-chester’s strategy for growth through enabling £1 billion of wealth creation over five years, leading to a healthier population with significantly increased wellbeing and a better educated and better trained workforce.

The key areas of focus are:�� To create an informatics capability that integrates health and social care to

facilitate self-management, care planning and delivery, commissioning, research and economic growth.�� To support the region’s ambition to be the “come to” place for inward invest-ment and to grow busi-nesses.�� To improve the outcomes for patients with cardiovas-cular disease or those who are at risk of this.�� To improve medication safety and optimisation.

Greater Manchester AHSN can be found at www.gmahsn.org

�� Regulation.�� Funding support.�� Business support.��Market analysis.�� Intellectual property protection.�� Procurement and adoption.At the heart of the Innovation Nexus is

an enquiry service, through which com-panies can arrange an initial consultation with one of Greater Manchester AHSN’s expert advisors. These advisors bring together expertise across all aspects of working with the NHS, from trials, evalu-ation and market needs analysis to pro-curement and adoption.

Through this combination of web re-sources backed up by a team of experts, the Innovation Nexus provides a single resource that can help companies pro-gress the adoption of their innovation with fewer unanticipated obstacles.

“We are extremely proud to have been able to support Zilico Ltd to achieve its first deal with the NHS,” says Keith Chantler, joint executive director of in-dustry and wealth at Greater Manchester AHSN. “Our role is to boost the economy and improve health – and, by helping companies to do business with the NHS, we are creating really positive outcomes for patients.”

Since its launch, the Innovation Nexus has seen great results, with nearly 30 en-quiries being processed from companies working in a broad range of fields – from mobile health apps to diagnostic tests and orthopaedic devices.

Greater Manchester AHSN is provid-ing advice on the full range of topics that the Innovation Nexus covers, espe-cially on developing an evidence base and health economic business case that can be presented to the NHS, and support in navigating NHS procurement.

“It is all part of our aim to increase NHS procurement spend in companies across Greater Manchester, East Che- shire and East Lancashire by 3 per cent by March next year”, Linda Magee says. “By then, we also aim to have supported at least 150 SMEs and lever £2.6 million of investment by March 2016.”

So whether you are an existing busi-ness wanting to grow, or a new business looking to invest in the area, the Inno-vation Nexus can help you overcome the challenges often faced by companies try-ing to introduce their products into the NHS.�� It is easy to access the Innovation Nexus. First, go to www.intohealth.org/gm-ahsn-advisors. Then click on the “Access the enquiry system” link. This will take you to the registration page, where you can create an account and complete the enquiry questionnaires.

Joint executive directors of Greater Manchester AHSN, Linda Magee and Keith Chantler

Procurement

Here’s health – for enterprising businessesWhether you are a start-up, a small or medium-sized business or a multi-national healthcare company, Greater Manchester is the place to be.Greater Manchester…�� Is the largest UK conurbation outside London.�� Is home to 93,000 businesses.��Generates around £47 billion per year of total gross value added.�� Produces almost one fifth of the North’s total economic output.��Has, in Manchester University, an institution which ranks in the

top five in the UK for “research power”.

Greater Manchester healthcare comprises…�� An annual NHS spend of £6bn.�� £600 million collaboratively com-missioned.�� 3.6m patients.�� 650 GP practices.Manchester is at the forefront of

utilising big data for patient care and public health, with a world-class e-health infrastructure that has enabled Salford Royal Hospital and local GPs,

in partnership with healthcare giant GSK, to conduct the world’s first pre-licence, real-world clinical trial, the Salford Lung Study.

Greater Manchester is also one of the UK’s top five biomedical clusters and boasts an unrivalled infrastruc-ture for supporting the growth of biomedical companies. Manchester Biotechnology Incubator and Core Technology Facility is Europe’s first campus-based biotechnology incuba-tor, while Manchester Science Part-nerships (MSP) are home to over 200

companies in life science, biotechnol-ogy, ICT (information and communi-cations technology) and digital.

MSP Citylabs is a 100,000 square foot state-of-the-art biomedical facil-ity, and MediPark is a planned 200-acre development, part of the £650m Airport City Enterprise Zone.

Greater Manchester provides excel-lent support for healthcare innovation and it has the capability to support NHS and commercial clinical trials. Manchester Academic Health Science Centre is one of only six Department

of Health designated centres of excel-lence in the UK. Its focus is transla-tional medicine and is linked via six clinical domains to the AHSN.

The Greater Manchester AHSN propels the adoption and diffusion of health innovation across the Greater Manchester region, while the Innova-tion Nexus improves relationships and collaboration between the NHS and industry, providing everything needed to develop, test and deliver innovative products and services within Greater Manchester.

The aims of Greater Manchester Academic Health Science Network

By helpingcompaniesdeal withthe NHSwe createpositiveoutcomesfor patients

COMMERCIAL VIEWPOINT

Business Insight

Innovation needs to be driven at grassroots level – and, when nur-tured and invested in the right way, it can result in disruptive new tech-nologies. This culture of innovation

in healthcare and life sciences is fostered in the North through support from Gov-ernment, academia, businesses, wider industry bodies and venture capital in-vestment.

The venture capital aspect includes SPARK Impact, managers of the £30 million North West Fund for Biomedi-cal, which supplies equity funding to small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) across the region. Since it began in 2011, the fund – which is provided jointly by the European Regional De-velopment Fund and the European In-vestment Bank – has injected more than £24m into 54 companies.

These businesses range from world-leading cancer therapeutics to unique stem cell technology, new pharmaceuti-cals and medical devices and diagnostics – all designed to drastically improve the way healthcare is delivered both in the UK and worldwide.

The quality and potential of these investee businesses was recognised at the Bionow Annual Awards 2014, with a number of companies shortlisted and

two winning prestigious awards. Special-ists in microbiological testing, Perfectus Biomed, received the accolade for Bi-onow Start Up of the Year, while Cre-dent Medical won the Bionow Health-care Project of the Year award for its unique non-invasive and painless blood glucose monitor.

Perfectus Biomed, based at Sci-Tech Daresbury, was set up in 2013 by Dr Sa-mantha Westgate. She identified a gap

in the market for laboratory testing that assessed antimicrobial products, using more “true to life” methods than are currently available. Experts at the com-pany specialise in the testing of biofilm-encased bacteria, in which infections have been linked to chronic non-healing wounds, failed medical implants and catheter infections.

“The team has been working ex-tremely hard to establish the company

and to ensure we have systems in place to offer a quality service,” says Dr Westgate, chief executive of Perfectus Biomed. “Over the last 12 months our client base has increased significantly in terms of the number of companies we support, the size and geography of those companies and the sectors that we are able to support, which has led to a 35 per cent increase in annual turnover.”

In 2013, Perfectus Biomed received £50,000 from the North West Fund for Biomedical and a further £50,000 from venture capital company Midven. “It was the investment from SPARK Impact via the North West Fund for Biomedical – and others – which help- ed us to drive the business forward, growing our research team,” says Dr Westgate, “implementing a UK- and Europe-wide marketing strategy and in-vesting in ISO [International Organiza-tion for Standardization] internal man-agement systems.”

Since the North West Fund for Bio-medical came to fruition, SPARK Im-pact has facilitated more than £11m of co-investment, from across academia, the NHS, the private sector and angel investors. SPARK’s investee companies have also attracted more than £5m in additional grant funding.

The other winner on the awards evening was medical devices start-up

Credent Medical, recognised for its novel non-invasive and pain-free tech-nology for diabetics to test blood glucose levels. An average diabetic will need to check their blood sugar levels by draw-ing blood from their fingertip around eight times a day. The product being developed by Credent is an ear clip, and would see no blood needing to be drawn.

The company, based in Liverpool Sci-ence Park, received £75,000 in backing from the North West Fund for Biomedi-cal in 2012, to develop the proof of con-cept for the technology. The company has now received further funding from MD Start to continue to develop the product.

Other shortlisted SPARK Impact investee companies included Newtec Vascular, ProKyma Technologies, Vide-regen, Albert Medical Devices, Lumba-Curve and Compliance Control. “All of these companies offer solutions to some of the biggest global healthcare chal-lenges we face,” says Dr Andy Round, investment director at SPARK Impact, “and as expert fund managers in this sector we’re proud to have spotted their real potential and to see them being rec-ognised in these awards.”�� The North West Fund for Biomedical can be found at www.thenorthwestfund.co.uk/ funds/biomedical

Fuelling innovation in global healthcare

Members of the SPARK Impact team – successfully generating co-investment

Funding

COMMERCIAL VIEWPOINT

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Business Insight

Regeneration

Mike Suarez, the chief executive of Cheshire East Council, explains how the local authority helped to head off a serious threat to the borough’s eco-nomic wellbeing after AstraZeneca announced it was withdrawing from its Alderley Park research centre

I joined Cheshire East Council as chief executive in August 2013 from a London borough where I was an executive director. If you think leafy Cheshire is a much less

challenging place to work than inner London, you couldn’t be more wrong.

In March 2013, AstraZeneca an-nounced that the majority of its research and development activ-ity would be moving to a new global centre and corporate headquarters in Cambridge, with the loss of 1,600 jobs from Alderley Park near Macclesfield.

The consequences could have been devastating. The average salary at the site was £52,500 compared with an average of £27,600 in Cheshire East as a whole, and the potential loss to the local economy was estimated at £245 million per annum.

Michael Jones, our council leader, was adamant from the outset that the prophets of doom must be proved wrong. To do this, it was essential for the council to take a leadership role in preserving as much as possible of Alderley Park’s capability as a life sciences and biotechnology campus,

working in partnership with central Government, Manchester City Coun-cil, AstraZeneca and other stakehold-ers.

Alderley Park was AstraZeneca’s global centre for cancer drug research and has world-class facilities and in-frastructure, so there was the poten-tial to create a highly attractive loca-tion for new start-ups and existing businesses alike.

Alongside Manchester Science Part-nerships (MSP), we invested in a new company to take ownership of the site. Now, instead of fearing the economic impact of job losses, we expect that Alderley Park will provide as many as 7,000 new jobs. In fact, AstraZeneca is speeding up its relocation programme to make space for newly arriving com-panies, some of which will benefit from a new equity investment fund to which the council is contributing £5m alongside MSP and AstraZeneca.

The council’s cabinet has approved a draft development framework for Alderley Park’s future as a bioscience hub. The draft outlines the council’s expectations for development propos-als and, when finalised, will be used to help in determining planning appli-cations. It will undergo a formal six-week public consultation and will be reviewed again once representations have been received.

The framework will play a vital role in guiding future development of the 400-acre site, to ensure its reputation as a centre for research and develop-ment in life sciences is protected and built upon.

MSP is proposing to invest £107m over ten years to improve the site, repurposing buildings to make them suitable for multi-occupancy, decom-missioning redundant facilities and investing in both maintenance and improvement of key assets to retain the site’s world-class research and de-velopment capabilities.

AstraZeneca’s relocation is cur-rently six months ahead of schedule, so MSP needs to move quickly before talented people find jobs elsewhere. It therefore wants to bring forward phase one of its investment strategy and make a major capital investment to maintain and upgrade existing as-sets by the end of 2015.

The council’s response to Astra-Zeneca’s announcement is an exam-ple of asserting the importance of leadership over a more conventional “management” approach.

Cheshire East, formed in 2009, has moved from being a “new council” and is now firmly established as an excellent administration, one which others look to emulate and learn

from. I have worked with cabinet members and senior managers to re-shape and redefine the top tiers of the organisation’s structure, replacing the old corporate management team and creating a strong corporate leader-ship board.

We have reshaped ourselves as a “strategic commissioning council”. This enables us to work differently and more flexibly, both together and with others, to improve outcomes for residents and service users. Under this strategic commissioning model, the strategic direction of the council is set by our cabinet. What are known as “commissioners” then determine the requirements for services: how our valuable and limited resources will be used to meet the relative pri-orities.

Then there are those who will de-liver services practically. These in-clude council services – companies owned and controlled by the coun-cil, such as Ansa our environmental services provider, Orbitas which runs our cemeteries and crematoria, com-munity and voluntary sector organi-sations, and contractors and private sector partners.

This strategic commissioning ap-proach allows us to focus our re-sources on delivering our strategic outcomes, determining the best de-livery solution for each service, con-sciously managing demand and mak-ing best use of resources outside the council.

The council leader has set the stra-tegic vision for Cheshire East with one very strong, clear message. He asked the staff: “Who do you work for?” and the clear, resounding answer was, is, and always will be: “The residents of Cheshire East”.

Our values start with a simple promise: “Putting residents first”. This means we commit to put residents first in every service we deliver, every de-cision we make and every change we implement. We put residents first by really living our values:�� Flexibility – we adapt quickly and learn together.�� Innovation – we are creative and challenge convention.�� Responsibility – we deliver our promises, efficiently.�� Service – we listen and respond ap-propriately.�� Teamwork – we respect and work well with others.I am very proud of our values, and

I believe that if we all truly live them and use them to shape the way we work, they will drive our performance and improve outcomes for the people of Cheshire East, both now and for the future.

Alderley Park is not the only suc-cess story to which we can point. Our financial position is strong: for the first time in its history Cheshire East Council returned an underspend (of £900,000) against last year’s approved revenue budget of £260m. We have bid successfully for and secured millions of pounds in Government funding for various major projects, including £16m for the Crewe Green Link Road and £643,000 for superfast broadband.

Cheshire East is now one of three “hot spots” outside London for new business creation. We have fewer NEETs (young people not in educa-tion, employment or training) than any council in the North West, and 93.6 per cent of our schools are good or outstanding – making us the third-best local authority in England. Re-cycling rates have increased to an all-time high of 54 per cent and our council tax and business rates collec-tion rate of 99 per cent is in the top third among unitary councils. The borough was named as the best place to live in the North West in the Hali-fax Quality of Life Survey.

Lastly, led by the council leader, we have developed a compelling business case for Crewe as a HS2 hub station, providing high-speed connectivity to London but, more critically, the po-tential to drive major growth and re-generation benefits for Crewe and the region as a whole.

Coming back to life: howcouncil created the NorthWest’s bioscience centre

Alderley Park research centre: As one door closes... a new era of opportunity opens

Council chief executive Mike Suarez

Cllr Michael Jones: took the lead

COMMERCIAL VIEWPOINT

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Newcastle AcademicHealth Partners

The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust: • Is one of the most successful teaching hospitals in England

providing academically led acute, specialist and community services regionally, nationally and internationally

• Provides the highest number of specialist services compared to any other group of hospitals across the UK

• Reported the highest number of recruiting studies in England during 2013/14, and ranked in the top three for recruitment into clinical trials

• Places Research and Innovation as a core strand of the Trust’sBusiness Strategy focusing on improving clinical outcomes for patients

Working together, Newcastle University, Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHSFoundation Trust:• Work closely with industry partners in a range of research,

business and knowledge exchange activities• Support the economic development of Newcastle and the wider

North East by collaborating with public, private and voluntaryorganisations to generate jobs, create and support businesses, and improve the overall health and wealth of the population

The 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) – the system forassessing the quality of research in UK universities – concluded that:• Amongst medical schools, Newcastle’s Clinical Medicine is ranked

4th overall for research intensity, a reflection of overall quality• Our Neuroscience, Psychiatry & Psychology overall research quality is

ranked in the top 10 in the UK and in the top five for research impact• Overall research quality of Newcastle’s Biological Sciences is ranked

in the top five in the UK and is the top university for its proportion of world leading publications (47%)

• Across the whole of Newcastle’s Faculty of Medical Sciences, overallresearch quality is ranked 8th among UK medical schools and top in England outside the “Golden Triangle”

“I said I wanted science to beat the heart of delivering a Northern Powerhouse as part of this government’s long-termeconomic plan. That’s why I’veearmarked £20 million to supportNewcastle University’s brilliant cutting-edge research, right here in the North East.”George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer,announcing the establishment of the National Centre for Ageing Science and Innovation in the Autumn Statement, December 2014

• Newcastle combines research and patient care to tackle some of the world’s major healthcare challenges, making Newcastle a centre of excellence in translational medicine

• Newcastle is home to one of the UK’s eleven National Institute ofHealth Research Biomedical Research Centres (BRCs). Newcastle’sBRC in Ageing & Chronic Disease aims to improve the prevention,diagnosis and treatment of diseases that affect the older person