Global Business Update
some are getting access to money and others are not. However,
clouds can have silver linings, and these challenges may prove to
be beneficial to the industry, as Bates explains: "Because funding
became tighter earlier in the U.K. than in the United States, we
have had to think smarter. As a result, we are leaner and less reliant on traditional funding than some of the other biotech regions.
I believe that this shows the business model is now adapting to the
science and the economic climate."
POTENTIAL FOR GROWTH
Although the U.K. biotech industry is moving forward, there is still
room for further growth. "We are good at creating small biotech
companies. However, these then tend to license out their technologies or go to a merger or trade sale before the full value of the
pipeline is realized, and the money goes elsewhere," says Hunt.
"Holding onto the assets for longer would retain more value in
the U.K., but these companies need more investment, as well as
investors that don't look to exit early. I'm not sure whether this
is a financial or a cultural issue, or just a result of the size of the
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April 2013
economy. It's not wrong; it just doesn't sustain
a broader industry."
The U.K. can learn from other biotech regions,
according to Treherne: "The U.S. biotech sector
is good at building medium-tier companies,
which may be because they have investors that
are more willing to back high-risk endeavors."
Powell sums up the status of the industry in positive
terms but with a word of advice relevant to all life science companies worldwide: "The building blocks are in place for a successful
biotech sector, and there are definitely some exciting things happening at the university level across the U.K. The U.K. has also
increased its skills base in clinical development with translational
medicine being one of the new key themes. However, the financial media still tend to focus on the negative, for example, on
drug development companies where there continues to be a
high attrition rate in clinical development. We need to promote the success stories and emphasize why the life sciences
are important."