BioWales 2010 reflects sector success
BioWales 2010 came to a close today with organisers heralding the most successful in the event’s eight year history, reflecting a buoyant bioscience sector, described by First Minister of Wales Carwyn Jones as “exceptionally significant to the country, showing every sign that it is weathering the storm.”
The two day event at the Vale Hotel near Cardiff drew its largest audience of close to 400 delegates with an impressive line-up of international profile speakers, including Nobel Prize winner Professor Sir Martin Evans and international stem cell expert Dr. Stephen Minger, and brought together over 130 organisations for 488 structured profile meetings in the speed dating style biopartnering event.
Event project manager Dr. Sharon Thomas said: “This has been our most successful BioWales to date, I’m really pleased with the turnout and the brokerage event that is at the core of what we are doing just keeps growing, bringing ideas, expertise and finance together to create bioscience collaborations in Wales.”
The event was opened by the First Minister Carwyn Jones, and attended by Lesley Griffiths AM, Deputy Minister for Science, Innovation and Skills, and Permanent Secretary to the Welsh Assembly Government Dame Gillian Morgan, whose career has been spent in healthcare.
The conference highlighted some of the pioneering work taking place in bioscience in Wales. Key speaker Dr. Stephen Minger, Head of Research and Development for Cell Technologies at GE Healthcare, was extremely positive about his company’s experience in Wales since the 1980s. He said: “Part of what drew me out of academia and into business was the opportunity to work with such an immensely talented team at our Cardiff site, where we are doing groundbreaking things, for the first time anywhere in the world, commercializing and industrializing the growth and use of stem cells for drug discovery - helping drug companies discover new medicines more quickly, and making medicines safer.
“What's happening here in Wales is comparable to many biotech hubs around the world, with a concentration of expertise and R&D excellence.”
The life sciences in Wales are represented by 330 companies, employing over 15,000 people and contributing more than £1.3bn to the Welsh economy. The sector has grown in Wales by over 19% in the last three years, and there are world-class facilities and people operating in this country. Wales is home to the largest cluster of in-vitro diagnostic companies in the UK while Cardiff University’s Wound Healing Research Unit (WHRU) has the distinction of being the second largest specialist wound healing centre in the world. In the field of Medical Technology, Biomet’s largest European subsidiary is in Bridgend and Arjo Huntleigh, the largest manufacturer of foetal monitors in the UK, has a site in Cardiff.
- Ends -
- 29 March 2010 -
