North East Life Sciences Conference 2022 - Culture of innovation critical to addressing climate emergency

Before this, Steve was Co-Chair of the UK Bioeconomy Strategy Board which led to the publication of the UK Government’s Bioeconomy Strategy in December 2018. He was, therefore, well positioned to provide a national context to which the North East contributes at the North East Life Sciences Conference.

Steve began by describing how the focus on UK manufacturing in life sciences is a major legacy from the Covid19 pandemic. The UK was famously the first with a vaccine but not only were there a number of vaccine candidates being researched in the UK, the UK Vaccines Taskforce ensured that, wherever possible, the scaling and manufacturing occurred in the UK. The Astra Zeneca vaccine that many of us have met in a little blue chair, was formulated at The University of Oxford thanks to the cutting-edge research led by Professor Sarah Gilbert. However, on this occasion, the world-class research was matched with a tremendous effort to bring together capabilities from across the country to make sure the scaling and manufacturing of the vaccine remained within the UK. This enabled the supply for early clinical trials and, eventually, for the population.

Steve explained how fundamental – critical even – this manufacturing capability is to the future growth and security of the Life Sciences Industry. He also described just how much of it happens in the region and explained that it’s because the North East is really good at making things and always has been. This creates a culture of innovation that can be applied to any industry, and this is what we’re seeing in life sciences.

This culture of innovation is critical to addressing the climate emergency. Steve projected us 50 years into the future and painted the very real scenario of our grandchildren asking us what we did about climate change. Did we have the science to do something about it? Yes, we had the science. So why didn’t you use it?

Which brought us on to the subject of leadership. At a high level, the notion of innovation to address health and climate challenges isn’t a controversial one. Across industry, academia, the NHS and government there’s alignment that things need to be done differently. For individual organisations, innovating is well accepted as being critical to growth and even business survival. This is the easy part of leadership. It gets much, much harder, Steve explained, when you set out to do it.

Innovation in practice is uncomfortable. The path to innovation is an unpredictable one; the route is unknown, the journey duration is unknown, even the destination is often unknown. For the people on this path, they are living in a sea of setbacks, failures and uncomfortable conversations. So, according to Steve, the culture of an organisation is essential to innovation. Not only a culture of embracing new ways of doing things but a culture that allows for the inevitable setbacks and celebrates failures as progress. For this, Steve explained, trust is critical. He told us the story of how, during his ten years at Fujifilm Diosynth, the senior leadership team created a culture of trust within the organisation and how this liberated teams to think creatively and propose new ways of working.

When it comes to creating an organisational culture, Steve provided the leaders in the room with some important advice: culture is created by every behaviour the team sees from its leaders. Members of the team will consciously or subconsciously observe how people in leadership behave in every given situation and they will use this as a compass for navigating what is acceptable and expected within the organisation. The words spoken by leadership pale into comparison to the actions they take, the behaviours they display and the tone in which they communicate – not only during significant situations but also in the small moments that occur every day in the corridor, in meeting rooms and at the coffee machine.

As Steve put it, when it comes to innovating for the health of the people and the planet, we’ve got the science, we’ve got the process and manufacturing capabilities and, with a track record of making things, it’s the people of The North East that can make it happen.

Innovation showcase session

North East England is now one of the UK’s hotspots for Life Sciences and plans to double the health and life sciences sector by 2030. With that in mind, we invited some of the best innovators in the region to present at last week’s conference. Each company shared their experiences, challenges and the opportunities working within the region.

Beetroot Health have developed their software products and services over a 20 year period. In that time the beetroot® platform has evolved from DMARD monitoring in NHS hospitals into a range of support solutions covering cancer surveillance, sexual health advice and vitamin distribution. The story is one based on great customer relationships – the beetroot® platform must be one of the longest-lived in NHS and Public Health history. And now Beetroot Health is evolving into app-based solutions to support patients to self-manage and self-care. All in response to requests from loyal customers.

Rapid Fluidics Ltd was established to provide a design and rapid-prototyping consultancy service to customers with a need for fast analysis of microfluidic design options. We've developed a novel way to rapidly, accurately, and reproducibly produce microfluidics which offers companies considering or developing microfluidic products a range of building blocks and manufacturing choices, and a much faster iteration cycle through designs before committing to the final production approach.

Aelius Biotech is a contract research organisation (CRO) specialising in lab models of the human digestive tract, human trial capabilities and gastrointestinal expertise. Aelius formed as a spin out of Newcastle University in August 2018 and has since worked with companies such as Huel, Reckitt, Britvic, Lubrizol and Suntory. Our unique, patented lab models allow integrated modelling of digestion, mucus permeation and epithelial absorption. With Innovate UK funding we are also productising our gastrointestinal models, beginning with our Large Intestine 'Colon Kit'.

AMLo Biosciences Ltd (AMLo) is an innovative medical device company with products arising from research conducted by Professor Lovat’s laboratory in the medical school at Newcastle University. AMBLor® is AMLo’s first product and will be launched into the USA in November 2022 and the UK in 2023. AMBLor® contains two novel antibodies which can accurately stratify early-stage melanomas into low-risk and standard categories. Currently we can provide a UKAS accredited test for the antibodies as a referral service in the UK.