BQ Yorkshire Special Feature Autumn 2015

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SPECIAL FEATURE

The healthcare pioneers Spotlight on Yorkshire’s cutting edge in medical research

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PROFILE Clarion

Harrogate medical solutions company set for ambitious next stage Cardio Solutions (UK) Ltd, the North Yorkshire-based independent medical devices distributor, is setting its sights firmly on the future with plans to target new sectors and expand its product portfolio as part of its ambitious five-year growth strategy Based in Harrogate, the family-run business was founded in 2005 and has the exclusive UK distribution rights on heart valves from US manufacturer St Jude Medical. It has grown from supplying heart valves to just ten hospitals to counting every cardiac hospital and cardiac surgeon in the UK and Ireland amongst its list of customers. The company attributes its success to a ‘steady growth’ approach, always investing in the business. With turnover currently over £3m, the target is to double this to £6m over the next five years, within the existing structure and product portfolio. However, as managing director Mark Woolley explains, there are more opportunities on the horizon: “The natural progression is to broaden the sectors in which we operate. We want to take our existing company values and industry experience, to open our doors to new markets, beyond cardiac.

“We feel the cardiology, orthopaedic, dental, cosmetic and veterinary markets offer us the next step. We’re looking at ways we might run these as divisions of Cardio Solutions, to create a bigger organisation. It’s early days but we’re looking for like-minded people who work in these areas and might wish to join us in setting up these new divisions – it’s really exciting.”

Cardio Solutions began when the UK managing director of St Jude approached Woolley to offer him exclusive UK distribution on its heart valves and, as Woolley notes: “Our relationship with St Jude has broken the mould in an industry dominated by direct sales forces. Right from the outset, the UK managing director had faith in our contacts and the way we did business and we always have those early days in mind – wanting to represent our suppliers in the best possible way and knowing the industry inside out.

“We feel very strongly that our relationships define our business. I know it’s a cliché, but people buy from people. The cardiac sector is a small market, with approximately 250 surgeons in the UK and Ireland, and we pride ourselves

Mark Woolley, managing director of Cardio Solutions; Richard Moran, senior partner at Clarion and Mark Bailham, commercial director of Cardio Solutions on knowing every single one of them. We prioritise good customer service; from hospital porter, to medical secretaries and surgeons, and we’re always looking to build on our existing relationships and listen and learn,” he adds.

KEEPING AHEAD “We spend a lot of time in theatre; it helps us really understand the issues surgeons and their teams are facing, where there are gaps in the market and how the products we offer might be improved. We choose the products we represent very carefully and have earned respect from medical professionals for that.”

Woolley and fellow director Mark Bailham are also working on a fellowship programme, alongside the medical device manufacturers, to help ensure continued advancements in the sector.

They recognise the importance of investing in generating the surgeons of the future – ones who are better trained and have greater experience.

Woolley also stresses the value of being able to rely on sound professional advice. “As a growing company, and particularly one that operates in such a dynamic market, it’s important that we can rely on our professional advisers. Clarion has

certainly become one of our most trusted advisers and acts as an extension of our business.

“We started working with Richard Moran and his corporate services team when we were first thinking about expanding the business and they are proving adept at always keeping an eye on the company’s future direction, while advising us on the issues we are facing now. I know we’re going to be calling on them more and more!”

Richard Moran adds: “With their unsurpassed industry knowledge and contacts as well as a keen eye for opportunities, Mark and the team are in an excellent position to secure medium and longterm growth for Cardio Solutions. We’re looking forward to supporting them over the coming years and helping their plans come to fruition.”

Can we help you? Call Richard Moran on 0113 222 3212 or email richard.moran@ clarionsolicitors.com. For more information visit www.clarionsolicitors.com.

WELCOME The healthcare pioneers

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Innovate or be history Linda Pollard, chairman of Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, tells BQ editor Mike Hughes about the importance of innovation Linda Pollard’s job at the head of the LTH NHS trust makes her responsible for a £1bn turnover and about 14,000 staff. “Innovation is totally essential,” she says. “We are lucky at Leeds that we are a major research centre, nationally and internationally and it is clear to me that research and innovation have to be at the forefront of everything we do.

“We are working on so many specialisms here, from hand replacement to organ research – there are dozens of pieces of work going on all over the place and without it you are doomed.” That volume of work will soon be added to if a bid is successful with Sheffield to be the Genomics centre for the North, focusing attention and funding on cutting edge DNA research and mapping.

“That’s the latest thing, but behind that is research, research, innovation, innovation.

And if you take your eye off the ball you will be history in a very short space of time. That refreshing thinking needs to be pressed home at the highest level, so Leeds is very fortunate to have Linda Pollard at the top of its tree.

She has a vision of how hospitals should be run and it is a perfect fit for this age of high technology and bright ideas – and has found the ideal home in a region rich with innovation that has earned it a global reputation. “It has to be part of what you genuinely believe in as an organisation and it has to form an enormous part of your strategy, which is what it does at Leeds. If you don’t support it and don’t support the people working in collaborations all over the world, you get left behind and lose those people. “I want them in Leeds and need them in Leeds and I particularly want them to teach in Leeds so we can bring through the next generation who are inspired by them and want to do their own creativity.”

Keen to set an example, Linda admits to ‘running on a prototype’ herself, having had an outside knee joint fitted a few years ago and adds ‘this sort of thing goes on all the time’.

Linda Pollard

“I was asked if I would be up for a prototype and said ‘of course, anything is better than what I have’. You have confidence in your clinician – otherwise you shouldn’t be there in the first place.

“It is all about how they talk you through the benefits. You should have a degree of apprehension about any intervention because your body can react in certain ways. But if you understand you go into it with your eyes open. There is something new every day in this arena. Medtech in our part of the world is fantastic and you have to take the benefits of that. We have people on our doorstep doing this work who couldn’t do it without access to the people we employ and vice versa. We have to keep pushing the boundaries. You would be very foolish as an organisation not to take it seriously and sell it to the population, and also to the staff, because they love success and working as part of a clinician’s team. It is a real morale booster.” The trust has developed a strong relationship between the Leeds Cancer Centre and cancer services provided in Malta, including the training of two separate groups of medical physicist students, and a contract commissioning two new Linear Particle Accelerator (Linac) machines for treating cancer with radiation.

LTH has also delivered oncology nurse training

in Malta and Leeds, which, in turn, follows on from an agreement with the King Hussein Cancer Centre in Amman for training and collaboration in Jordan and Leeds.

Wherever it works, there is a LTHT enthusiasm for both spreading the word and pushing the boundaries. “There is no question of the home benefit of what we are doing, but I am after a world reputation because that is what attracts the big-hitters who want to get involved in certain subject matters that we are leading on,” says Linda. “There is a question asked at every consultant interview we do: ‘what do you do with research?’. We are aligned with the university and have a responsibility there to encourage research and we are a teaching hospital. Linda and the trust has worked closely with Olga Kubossava who - as well as being a member of the wonderful Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (it really exists, as part of www.improbable. com) – set up and runs Image Analysis. From completing her PhD in computer science at Leeds in 2007, Olga’s company is now a leading pioneer in MRI analysis software. Its cutting edge work allows for early detection of even subtle changes in MRI scans taken before and after the treatment from patients with, for example, rheumatoid arthritis and cancer.

“Olga is seriously amazing. I was chairing the university when I first came across her and she won Innovator of the year. That was her first accolade, but she has just gone on and on, and she is now at the leading edge of her sector. She is a role model of what you can do after the initial struggles of getting started.

She is young and she has really cracked it.

As we all know, there will be failures and successes along the way, but if you don’t try, you don’t know. For all the Olgas and John Fishers, there will be other poor souls who are still flogging away who haven’t had the breakthrough yet, for whatever reason. But if they are working on a serious innovation that needs support, then we have to seek them out.”

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INTERVIEW The healthcare pioneers

Mike Hughes admires the view ahead with Prof John Fisher of University of Leeds The directions to Prof John Fisher’s office at Leeds University were a little challenging. But the views were so well worth the journey.

I needed to go to the main car park on Woodhouse Lane (left, right and park under the trees) and head for the deputy vicechancellor’s office which is room 13.04 in the Marjorie and Arnold Ziff Building (number 77 on my map). Then enter via the Beech Grove Terrace entrance and take either the lift or stairs to level 13. Lift, I think.

But I was then rewarded with two views – one from Prof Fisher’s very large window showing a wide expanse of university buildings and countryside beyond and one from the man himself, a visionary leader of a team with a global reputation.

His specialist field is summed up by his pioneering programme ’50 active years after 50’, which aims to develop products to make old age a thing of the past. Age is fine, but with new joints and new innovations, he aims to help people look forward to their 100th birthday with confidence and vitality.

His list of achievements - which have rewritten the history of his sector, earned him a CBE for services to medical engineering and a global top-of-the-list reputation - are staggering.

In building one of the most successful medical and biological engineering research institutes in the world, he has attracted more than £100m of funding into Leeds University and published more than 400 papers. He invented a ceramic-on-metal hip replacement which has given a new lease of life to thousands of people around the world and is a leading developer of tissue regeneration technology, which builds biological ‘scaffolding’ to help patients replace their own ageing body parts.

“In a sector like medical technology, which is very mature and highly regulated, innovation is not necessarily done directly by the big organisations. It is done in the research base at universities, in small companies and in

In the business of changing lives

INTERVIEW The healthcare pioneers

university spinouts,” Prof Fisher tells me.

“The other key role for the universities is the provision of skilled people to deliver the innovation in universities, smaller companies or in the larger companies as it gets adopted.

“Science is still advancing an awful lot, with new technologies and materials emerging all the time. It all has the potential to feed into health care and produce the innovative products. There is an integrating part of healthcare technologies and I think universities have a role to play going forwards where you are bringing together innovation in technology, improvements in diagnostics and information and then the patient themselves and how they fit into it all and adapt their lifestyles.

“The role of the university is very much about the upstream end of things – the initial creation and advancement of knowledge and the proving of concepts and technology. This is embedded in the research at universities and increasingly in collaboration with the NHS. “The model of big industries doing their development work in their own R&D labs started changing 20 years ago and is quite dated now. I think they feel they get a greater diversity of input from a more global community. One of the projects I work on for Johnson & Johnson sources technology input from seven universities around the globe – there is no way they could generate that level of expertise from one university or a corporate research lab.

Going so global on such a scale can cloud an appreciation of how much this level of work contributes to the regional economy, and how brightly the spotlight is that Prof Fisher has helped turn towards Leeds.

The region has some very big players, but a huge amount of the work is from the SMEs. Prof Fisher is at the top of a pyramid with a granular foundation made from fresh approaches, innovations and new pioneers.

“The SMEs won’t necessarily be going for global markets, but will be doing innovation in a different way, perhaps aimed at a national market, but feeding into the global picture. John Fisher and his team are very much about the bigger picture, where the interest, the markets and the investment is focused on global excellence and worldwide

partnerships. Quite a change from my days at Preston Polytechnic, but the urgent needs of businesses and the driving need for Britain to always grow its scientific reputation in those intervening decades has transformed academia’s role.

“Often universities build a reputation solely around an academic area, and if that knowledge becomes useful and exploited, then they develop business links. The approach I have taken here, which is now in the process of being taken more widely, is to do what a business would do.

“I wanted to look at the core capability of the knowledge base, the disciplines and the academic bit, but also look at the market opportunity of need, whether that is a clinical, technology or product need.

“Then I do a classical business strategy approach. Where is the market need greatest? Then use that as the focus of

“Science is still advancing an awful lot, with new technologies and materials emerging all the time.

It all has the potential to feed into health care and produce the innovative products” the academic capabilities and create a new enterprise very strongly aligned to a market need. This is an essential part of any university’s strategy now, but when lecturer John Fisher joined Leeds in 1988, this was radical thinking and he has played a key role in changing that and perfecting the balance between knowledge and commerce.

The perfect pipeline connecting the two requires an early focus on the end goal. As he says, if you are setting off on a journey, it helps if you know what your intended destination will be, rather than just leaving and not knowing where you might end up.

“It is no coincidence, as a result of how we do things at Leeds, that the vast majority of our graduates have skills that they go on to use in a creative industry. Our starting point is taking in undergraduate students who

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are here to be educated, but if they stay in a knowledge environment, they will stay in education or research, because they do not necessarily have the right skill sets.”

Crucially, Prof Fisher had worked in aerospace and automotive before he moved to academia, giving him invaluable experience outside the lecture rooms. He then worked in the NHS and founded a couple of companies, but always found that the most fertile ground for creative innovation was the universities.

For Leeds, that innovation comes down to three areas – joint replacement, regenerative devices and stratified and precision medicine.

The first is hugely successful, based around that ceramic and metal hip replacement; the second is the biological scaffolding mentioned earlier and driven forwards by Prof Fisher’s founding of the Tissue Regenix company and his work as executive director of Regenr8, another university spinout helping bring regenerative therapies to market.

The third element is part of the future for the sector, and involves making joints to particularly help a section of patients with a common problem. So instead of one hip joint, there would be a range to cover hugely varying types of degeneration. Tailor-made rather than off the shelf.

That work opens up vast markets, from the wealthier areas that are putting a lot of money into healthcare to the poorer regions of the world where the ability to stratify the development process can mean a cheaper version of a joint.

Not second-rate healthcare, but care at a substantially reduced cost. It becomes a choice between no provision or provision at a secure level, all of which brings the individual patient right to the fore, ahead of the care provider, as the market moves ahead. Prof John Fisher is leading – to give 50 years of vitality and freedom to the 50-pluses – is lifechanging for thousands upon thousands of patients and for the sector he works in.

But also his approach to that work and the role he has played in moving a university’s line of sight from pure academia towards commercial potential has been pivotal in changing the way universities are viewed hugely increasing their value to the regional and national economy. n

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PROFILE PWC

PwC turbocharging life sciences for the Northern Powerhouse The UK, and the North, has a long history of excellence in life sciences, with the development of IVF, MRI and the mass production of penicillin.

But the UK is facing increasing competition from the US, Europe and Asia. While the US has been growing their share of global R&D expenditure from 39% in 1990 to over 53% in 2013, the UK has remained relatively stagnant at about 10% and has closed a number of major R&D sites.

However, life sciences are rising up the Government’s agenda, as it addresses the UK’s ability to compete globally, in part, through the development of new biolclusters. One example, Alderley Park, is now home to over 80 innovative start-ups and Biotechs such as Molplex Pharmaceuticals and NeuDrive Limited.

This rejuvenation in the North of England demonstrates how the coming together of the right pieces of the puzzle is having a positive impact on UK life sciences. If the UK is to compete on a national stage it needs to ensure it works as one. Ned Wakeman, Director of BioHub at Alderley Park said: “We at BioHub are hugely excited by the progress to date in the Northern Life Sciences scene and the prospects for what lies ahead. Since launching 2 years ago, we now have 30 physical customers, 92 virtual customers, and 10 Corporate Partners in the Alderley Park BioHub, employing more than 450 staff. To support growing companies, the BioHub provides innovative entrepreneurial programmes, and has a world class mentor network, which includes global leaders from across disciplines at Astrazeneca, alongside successful serial entrepreneurs and VCs. We have attracted over £10 million in funding, including the £5 million Medicines Technology Catapult, £1.2m RGF6 funding, and £5m Alderley Park Ventures Fund. It is particularly exciting to see the vast commercial and scientific experience in the region, together with the unique capabilities within of Alderley Park supporting the creation and growth of companies delivering cutting edge science and discoveries.” PwC’s consulting practice has been playing a key role in this exciting and ever emerging space supporting organisations such as the Northern Health Science Alliance (NHSA), Liverpool Health Partners and Medcity, as well as LEPs, Academic Health Science Networks, such

Karen Finlayson, PWC partner & Northern Health Leader

as North West Cost, and has provided advice to central government. By bringing together the ingredients that already exist, we have helped organisations define their roles for success and coordinated efforts across stakeholders to deliver on the opportunities for the UK. Across our six offices in the north, Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Hull, Leeds and Newcastle, we have a range of experts, some who have worked for pharmaceutical companies as well as graduates from globally recognised degree programmes.

Additionally, there is support from world class academic institutions which are proactively seeking collaboration with each other as well as industrial partners. This position is truly game changing as the combined experience and expertise of the northern universities, linked to the commercial acumen of industrial sponsors, has the potential to bridge the gap that the UK has long suffered; the gap between research & development excellence and the commercialisation of innovation and discoveries on UK soil. PwC has first-hand experience working with NHSA, an entity looking to harness the talent in the North and foster growth of new life science ventures and bring new innovative companies to the region. The NHSA has been created to drive the life and health sciences agenda for the North. Following the launch of the NHSA in 2013, a PwC team worked with its CEO, Dr Hakim Yadi, to bring together the top research intensive universities of the North (the N8) along with the research intensive NHS Trusts and AHSNs to develop a shared vision for a combined and collaborative Northern offer. Following this, PwC further supported the NHSA to secure funding through development and challenge of their business case for Health North. The NHSA was

successful in securing £20m of this funding and has already had a tremendous impact on Health and Life Sciences ecosystem in the North through the Health North initiative. Overall, research funding in the North is now the third largest in the UK; thanks in part to the efforts of the NHSA. Dr Hakim Yadi, CEO of the NHSA said: “The PwC team brought a depth of industry knowledge alongside an acute understanding of the wider UK & Global Life Sciences landscape to work with our leading clinicians and academics to develop a coherent Life Sciences strategy.

Additionally, the approach taken by the PwC team helped bring all the stakeholders along the journey so that we were set up to begin executing on the strategy straight away.”

Though the ingredients are there and success is being enjoyed, the UK remains a complex and often bureaucratic environment to work in. Some approaches have been developed to cut through the red tape, for example, Birmingham’s Trial Acceleration Programme (TAP) has been driving efficiency and innovation through networked trial programmes. But these are often isolated events and not easily replicated by others. Our view is that a whole system approach is required to maximise the potential of UK life sciences – linking the regulators, the payers, the innovators, the NHS and even the patient together to achieve common goals of improving outcomes for patients whilst generating wealth for our economy.

Karen says: “This is truly an exciting time for the life sciences in the UK and we see the North as having a significant part to play, given the world class innovation and research capabilities in the region. Bringing clients together and helping them to navigate and solve complex issues is what PwC do best. We will continue to work with the key stakeholders within the local health economy to bring our insights and expertise to help realise the full potential of life sciences in the UK “

For further information contact Karen Finlayson on 0113 289 4167 or karen.finlayson@uk.pwc.com

INTERVIEW The healthcare pioneers

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Targeting the invisible BQ editor Mike Hughes attempts to understand aptamers, but can clearly see why Aptamer Group is a pioneer in the sector Mel Ellyard needs more space.

Each room we go into on a tour of Aptamer Group’s labs at the aptly named Innovation Way on York Science Park, is full of kit.There is dedicated, serious and headline grabbing work going on here led by CEO Dr Arron Tolley, chief technical officer Dr David Bunka and chief operating officer Mel, Arron’s wife.

To be almost offensively simplistic about it, aptamers are synthetic compounds, produced in a laboratory from strands of DNA or RNA. They fold into very complex shapes which enables them to attach to any number of targets; like cancer cells, viruses and tissues.

This very effective molecular glue is said to have a high affinity - one factor you would look for in an apatmer. You also want a high level of specificity, which means the aptamer can easily recognise one target but not another, even if they are very similar, and only attach to the correct target.

Making trillions of slightly different aptamers at a time means that when the target is introduced, there is a better chance of a number of aptamers sticking, which can then be identified. That process is repeated over and over to pin down the perfect aptamers for that target. That is what medical companies around the world will pay for – a highly effective aptamer which is looking for a specific target to attach to and could then carry something with it that will affect that target when it finds it. Arron and David are particularly good at doing that and discussed the commercial possibilities over late night

meetings at Leeds University back in 2008.

“I had always been interested in how far aptamers could go when you took them out of a university setting,” said David.

“My head was very academic focused, but Arron had more industry experience from before his time on the PhD, so he looked at it and said ‘hang on a minute – there’s a lot of commercial potential here which is never going to be exploited in a university environment’. “Settling down into a position in academia didn’t really appeal, so Arron said ‘should we try to make a go of this and see if there is a commercial appetite?’ and while I was still at the university he did quite a lot of research to see if there was a company selling this as a service.” Mel says their investigation of the landscape around aptamers suggested there was scope for a new business. “We looked at the IP and FTO - freedom to operate - and found that a lot of core patents for two main operations in the US were starting to come to an end around 2010-2011. So there was a lot of academic interest but few commercial operations. “So we were ahead of the game, with one of the world’s leading aptamer experts and a fierce entrepreneur who worked very closely with patent experts.”

There seems to be no limit to aptamers. From pregnancy testing to water purification to battling bioterrorism, aptamers can be made that find what is invisible. Cancer is a target in many ways, particularly for aptamers which are carrying a chemotherapeutic

‘cargo’. The aptamers ignore all the healthy cells that aren’t cancerous, attach to the ones that are and deliver the treatment.

Your body doesn’t mind all this work going on because a perfectly made aptamer is indistinguishable from a piece of dna, so the body thinks a normal process is going on and treats the aptamer as a part of itself.

So far David has created aptamers for more than 200 separate targets.

Tomorrow Arron would be working on cell lines for companies like AstraZeneca, but today he was next door designing benches to hold the robotics system that is constantly being developed and is a key part of the company’s expansion. Its enormous capacity to replicate selection processes for that whittling down of aptamers enables the team to accept more and more contracts.

But over the next few months more people will be brought in and roles will be more clearly defined as the company tackles around 40 separate projects. Major companies are knocking on the door at Innovation Way because a very efficient SEO strategy has got the Aptamer Group’s name out in the sector. And they see the same potential that Arran saw seven years ago.

It’s been a fast-paced few years since Arran came home ‘waving his hands in the air and talking about aptamers’, Mel recalls. He then spent an unpaid year doing his research (while Mel was working for the FT and then running her own business) and then three years in a lab in Leeds proving what could

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INTERVIEW The healthcare pioneers

be done against oesophageal cancer and securing things like IP, which they use to control ownership of each aptamer.

“Bits of equipment started making their way into the house. We had lovely big home with a massive basement, so it all started appearing down there.

“When robots started landing on the kitchen table, we knew we had to do something.

The business was moving, we had started to talk about investment, so we really needed to move this to a commercial lab.”

Now it is dealing with customers in America, China and across Europe in a market that has no geography or innovation limitations. A strong board of directors is being developed to bring in more experience of sectors they are working in, including diagnostic, therapeutic and biomarkers, which can indicate diseases in organisms.

One of the directors already goes out to Asia every couple of months to help increase Aptamer Group’s profile and grow the business in areas hit by the likes of Ebola

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and Aids. “It’s addictive. The projects are fascinating and it is so important to us that it is privately owned and we still have control,” says Mel. “We have just finalised a third round of funding, but we will have to have a Series A at some stage. The key is how fast we need to move to stay ahead of the market – I know these guys could spend millions on new equipment at the drop of a hat.

“Early next year I think we will be looking at something. Probably not venture capital, but we are going to have to go for a substantial slug of money. We’re already talking to contacts of our existing investors to see how we go about that. “It’s scary when we think that although we formed in 2008, we only started trading in 2012. While pausing and reflecting now is not an option, it might be tempting to say let’s just get in a load of staff and a load more space in. “But, again, that would be really dangerous because with these two core people in the business, it is a gradual process to download from these guys and get their processes into the business and

operational.” The fast pace has also meant a clean, sharp structure to the company, with four distinct stratas under the main heading.

Aptasol, or Aptamer Solutions, is the core business, developing and making aptamers; Aptamer Diagnostics is a contract research organisation focusing on aptamers for diagnostics and detection platforms; Aptamer Therapeutics specialises in that area and Aptasort looks after biomarker discovery projects. There is so much technology in these rooms and yet Aptamer Group is so human. It is organic, growing all the time, being fed and looked after by devoted parents. It’s whole reason for existence is to look after people and their problems by rewriting the textbooks almost daily and at its core it has the sharpest minds in the business, who perhaps never quite know where their technology will take them by the end of each day.

Almost tucked away in the corner of a Yorkshire science park, they are making jaws drop around the world. n

24/08/2015 09:52

PROFILE University of Bradford

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Changing lives and our economy through digital health and care “The biggest innovations of the 21st century will be at the intersection of biology and technology. A new era is beginning.”

- Steve Jobs Imagine if a tiny device was embedded invisibly under your skin that could tell your smartphone your blood sugar levels, calorific intake, or even if you are in imminent danger of a heart attack to give a warning that saves your life.

Imagine if you and your doctor could have real time access to your health and lifestyle data, analysed by powerful software for patterns to find potential cures or preventative measures for chronic diseases like diabetes.

Imagine if we could create a community to innovate and bring to market new solutions to deal with urgent issues such as an ageing population, chronic diseases and a £30 billion NHS funding gap.

For the latter at least you have to imagine no more – the community is here – with the creation of the Digital Health Enterprise Zone (DHEZ) in Bradford. Digital health is already empowering people to better track, manage, and improve their health, to live better lives, and to improve their communities. It’s also helping to reduce inefficiencies in healthcare delivery, improve access, reduce costs, increase quality, and make medicine more personalised and precise.

This technology is advancing rapidly, but the potential to create benefits and savings across health and care systems is largely unexploited.

The business opportunity is huge, with a global market worth $61 billion in 2013 set to rise to $233 billion by 2020. The Digital Health Enterprise Zone is a £13 million programme to cement the Leeds City Region’s position of leadership in digital health innovation. It’s a partnership led by the University of Bradford, with BT and the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council, supported by NHS and other organisations including three local NHS Trusts.

“DHEZ is about creating a community of businesses, academics, health and people.

It is a community that will work together to understand the health and care issues facing our population and create, innovate, and shape digital health solutions and models of care that

Join our community of Innovators in the Digital Exchange opening in early 2016

DHEZ: Changing Lives and Our Economy Through

Innovations in Digital Health and Care actually work. If this community also provides students will work with patients, healthcare together to innovate, test, create benefits and savings “Theroutes biggest innovations of population and through create, clear to market, both domestic and professionals and theourcompanies DHEZ to innovate, and shape digital evaluate and bring to market across health and care systems the 21st century will be at health solutionsservices and models and of new solutions to deal with is largely unexploited.

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Region’s position of leadership in The first phase of the Digital attack to give a warning that digital health innovation.

Digital innovation health is already and creation of two complementary DHEZ’s exciting impact will ultimately bring Health Enterprise Zone saves your life. empowering people to better It’s a partnership led by the will see the creation of two Imagine ifspaces you and your doctor track, manage, and improve University of Bradford, with research over the next year. these innovations tocomplementary millions ofinnovation patients andby 2018 could have real time access to their own and their family’s BT and the City of Bradford research, spaces in the centre of health and lifestyle data, health, toBradford live better, more Metropolitan District Council, Bradford over the next year.

Theyour Digital Exchange building in stimulating job creation, driving innovation analysed by powerful software productive lives, and to improve supported by NHS and other The Digital Exchange building in for patterns to find potential communities.

It’s also organisations including three is being upgraded to createtheir a high quality and generating investment Bradford isand being funding upgraded toin the cures or preventative measures helping to reduce inefficiencies local NHS Trusts. create a high quality business for chronic diseases like in healthcare delivery, improve “DHEZ is about creating a economy. business incubator to bring small and young regional health incubator to bring small and diabetes. access, reduce costs, increase community of businesses, young companies together in an quality, and make medicine more Imagine if wetogether could create in an open innovation academics, health and people. open innovation environment. companies personalised and precise. a community of individuals, It is a community that will work Scheduled to open in early healthcare providers, academics toThis technology is advancing together to understand the 2016, the Digital Exchange will environment.

Scheduled open in early 2016, it and businesses - working rapidly, but the potential to health and care issues facing house companies that focus will house companies that focus on information A PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN: University of Bradford +44 (0) 300 456 4888 and communications technology, with onsite Richmond Road info@dhez.org Bradford, BD7 1DP practical support available www.dhez.org from BT specialists, university academics and the Council’s business support team. In addition to being a base for businesses, there will be access to skilled project contributors, advice and funding; networks of purchasers and supply chain partners; and unique facilities to create, build, test and evaluate If you are a business, individual or health digital health innovations. professional interested in digital health, join Complementing the Digital Exchange, the nearby the DHEZ community. DHEZ, University of £7 million Health and Wellbeing Centre will Bradford, Richmond Rd. BD7 1DP be used to connect with the community, run +44 (0) 300 456 4888 academic programmes and house practising info@dhez.org health professionals. Teams of researchers and www.dhez.org

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PROFILE University of Leeds

Towards our ten-year vision – a £1bn Leeds City Region opportunity in medical technology innovation Advances in medical technology can take years to find their way to the clinic and to patients, not to mention the high costs associated with developments, and significant commercial risks.

And the medical technologies sector is growing rapidly - with an estimated 3,268 companies, generating an estimated turnover of £18.1bn and employing an estimated 88,000 people across the UK - it is one of the nation’s key growth sectors.

The Leeds City Region (LCR) has a track record of value creation from university research with some of the largest UK spin out investments including Bradford Particle Design through to the Tissue Regenix Group (floated on AIM with a current market CAP of £150m), and the recent start-up Quantum Imaging which secured £1.6m (one of the highest investments secured in an initial university start up). The region has over 500 companies across the Yorkshire and Humber region in the medical and healthcare sector, and, together with universities, it has the potential to create a billion pound industry sector for the UK’s economy: “The £10m per year public funding in our region’s research has the potential to attract a further £40m per year investment into industry in new product development” says Professor John Fisher, Director of the Institute of Medical and

Biological Engineering at the University of Leeds.

“Based on historical data for the high value engineering sector in the UK which produces a twenty fold gearing of GVA from investment in R&D, we have the potential to create a £1bn per year contribution in medical technology for our region’s economy”.

The University of Leeds boasts exceptional research strengths and a history of successful innovation and commercialisation. With a goal of ‘50 active years after 50®’, it is dedicated to improving the quality of life of an ageing population. The University’s Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (iMBE) hosts a world class cluster of expertise and £50m current research funding (£10m per year), establishing Leeds as a national and international centre of excellence for medical technology research and innovation, acting as the centre for regional innovation and developments in medical technology.

Successful innovation starts with distinctive world-leading research and novel capabilities which is co-created, collaboratively, with industry and health service partners. The Institute houses a dedicated innovation environment for the research and innovation community (1000m2) Class 2, ISO9001-accredited laboratory space

for research and innovation with company partners, and is the largest multi-disciplinary orthopaedic engineering research group in Europe. But research in isolation will not grow the sector. Substantial work must be undertaken to advance and to de-risk the technology, and in partnership, develop product concepts to make it attractive for further investment and product development; new processes must be developed to allow swift and reliable manufacture; and a cohort of new industrialists must be trained as the workforce to sustain the growth of an emerging technology sector.

The Institute houses the Medical Technologies Innovation and Knowledge Centre (IKC): a dedicated team of innovation professionals committed to accelerating the commercial development of new medical technology products and services arising from iMBE’s research, who work in partnership with clinicians and companies to translate research into products and services. This Centre, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), facilitates collaboration between companies, engineers, scientists and clinicians to develop innovative technologies by speeding up the route to market, ensuring products and services are fit for purpose, and

PROFILE University of Leeds

reducing the risk of late-stage failure. In its first five years of operation it has already achieved significant success – supporting the development of 50 new products and services; five spin-out companies; and the leverage of an additional £20m private sector investment in industry each year to support new product developments.

To support future of the medical technologies sector’s current industries, MeDe Innovation (The EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Medical Devices) - a collaborative research project led by the University of Leeds, bringing together expertise from the universities of Newcastle, Nottingham, Bradford and Sheffield - is researching advanced design and manufacturing methods to provide methods for producing cost-effective, reliable and effective devices; supporting the development of the sector and satisfying the health service’s requirement for new, innovative and cost effective treatment options.

The work of the IKC, MeDe Innovation and iMBE is supported by a partnership with the Leeds Teaching Hospital NHS Trust. Recognised by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR),

Five years of innovation success: • Supported in the development of 50 new products and services • Five spin-out companies • Additional £100m private sector investment in private sector The IKC’s ambition is to create a £1bn regenerative devices industry in the UK, and in partnership, support medical technology development across a range of clinical applications

the Leeds NIHR Musculoskeletal Biomedical Research Unit provides a route for collaboration between academics and clinicians who focus on osteoporosis, arthritis and rheumatology. This key alliance between academia and the clinic means that our research is always developed with patient benefit at its core.

Helping to develop and retain skilled people within the sector is also key to delivering our vision for the region. The Institute’s training initiatives and career development programmes help to address the skills shortage within the industry. A Centre for Doctoral Training in Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine will deliver 50 PhD graduates over the next five years, plus, a novel Postgraduate Certificate in Professional Innovation Management for postdoctoral researchers is upskilling the research workforce to be industry and innovation ready.

The next five years will see us continue to embed the IKC’s innovation processes nationally, developing a culture of innovation in other universities and diversifying into a wider range of clinical applications for the regenerative devices and enabling technologies we support. We’ll be focussing on regenerative devices - regenerative therapies delivered as Class III medical devices. It takes, typically, fewer than 10 years to translate regenerative devices into the market place and costs less than £10m – much less than all other forms of regenerative and cell therapies. Our vision is to create a £1bn regenerative devices industry through the IKC’s work, increasing the number of academic and industry partners we work with and doubling the investment we are able to generate from the private sector. We are half way towards achieving our plan. The translation of technology will be supported through our national EPSRC Centre for Innovative

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Manufacturing in Medical Devices.

We are also launching a new collaborative project closer to home, a project to build capability in early stage innovation amongst universities based in the Leeds City Region. This will involve working across a broader medical technology base, but localised to a smaller number of universities and regional companies. Through the IKC’s demonstrated success, we will support partner universities in York, Bradford, Leeds Beckett and Huddersfield working with the Leeds City Region Local Enterprise partnership (LEP) to lever additional innovation support from a range of sponsors and from companies.

Our work over the last five years has made a tangible difference, supporting economic growth in the medical technologies sector. We can now build on that, bringing other universities and med tech companies on board and, in particular, share our expertise with our partner universities in Yorkshire and across the UK, diversifying and growing geographically and technologically will help us all deliver an economic boost both to the region and the UK. We’re encouraging medical technology companies in the region to get in touch and register their interest in opportunities to collaborate. We’ll be running workshops and seminars across the region in 2015 to kick start the project.

For further information on opportunities for medical technology companies, academics and clinicians, join the IKC’s mailing list by emailing med-tech@leeds.ac.uk with your contact details and areas of interest.

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PROFILE HGF

The Healthcare market needs to ‘Box Clever’ with patent ideas Innovation in the healthcare sector is a driving force of the Yorkshire economy, given the region’s unique advanced manufacturing expertise based on a long-standing and strong manufacturing heritage. A wide range of specialist local SMEs hold a critical place in the supply chain of the global healthcare companies. These, combined with leading research universities and teaching hospitals in the region, create an environment which encourages the creation of protectable and exploitable intellectual property.

HGF was formed in the mid-1990s to deliver a new approach to protecting IP rights; from the initial ‘light bulb’ moment through to licensing and other revenue generation and enforcement.

Partner, Vanessa Stainthorpe believes its subsequent success is based on the twin pillars which have underpinned its strategy throughout its 20-year history. “There has always been an intense focus on developing long-term relationships with clients, so that you become their trusted advisor, and on building industry-specific teams with intimate knowledge of their sector and of each client’s detailed requirements,” she says. “To deliver the best results for clients, you’ve got to really have a passion for your particular sector, but also to be creative about advising them how to get the best from every element of their IP portfolio.”

HGF has a specialist healthcare team which includes medical devices, pharmaceuticals and life sciences, recognising that although there may be areas where there is crossover knowledge, they are essentially very different sectors and their clients require different skillsets from IP advisers. The healthcare team’s expertise goes well beyond patent and trade-mark filing and

The message to any company which thinks it could benefit from Patent Box is to act now, to take professional advice about the potential benefits of taking out patent protection.

Vanessa Stainthorpe, Partner, HGF Sheffield

prosecution, to include expert strategy advice and sophisticated ‘freedom to operate’ opinions and advising on the complex of areas of SPC’s.

“Patent filings in the healthcare sector have been on the increase in recent years, but sometimes smaller companies think it’s likely to be too expensive to take out a patent, or they don’t see the full advantages of doing so, and decide not to proceed,” she says.

“However, as their business model evolves, and their experience of the marketplace grows, you will often find them taking out patents; either as a defence against their competitors, or because they calculate that they can make money through licensing.”

Stainthorpe is especially enthused by the government’s Patent Box initiative, an innovative approach intended to stimulate entrepreneurship, and investment in R&D, introduced in the 2013 Budget.

“We are still meeting companies who aren’t aware of Patent Box, but essentially, it is a favourable tax regime so you pay less tax on profit derived from patentable inventions,” she says.

“The main rate of corporation tax in the UK is 20%, of course, but companies registering with Patent Box pay just 10%, and that can be on their global profit from their inventions, not simply from UK revenue.

“As the government intended, it does make

getting a patent more attractive, and has appealed to companies of all sizes. When the scheme was announced, for example, GSK announced that it would be building a £350m manufacturing plant at Ulverston because of those tax benefits.”

“The message to any company which thinks it could benefit from Patent Box is to act now, to take professional advice about the potential benefits of taking out patent protection, and to then consult with their tax advisers to understand the financial aspects of the move,” she says. ”It’s not an opportunity to be missed, so I think companies who either haven’t been aware of Patent Box, or who previously decided not to become involved with the initiative, really should look at it closely to see what commercial, legal and tax benefits it might give them.”

HGF For more information please contact: Vanessa Stainthorpe, Partner. HGF Sheffield office: Fountain Precinct, Balm Green, Sheffield, S1 2JA Email: vstainthorpe@hgf.com Tel: +44 (0) 114 274 3703

INTERVIEW University of Leeds

Loving the sector The advancements in medical technology are fastpaced and numerous. Mike Hughes meets Kevin Kiely, who is determined to help firms make the most of new opportunities

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It would take about a third of this article to list the hundreds of members of Medilink, the national health technology business support organisation. Since 1999, it has helped them with everything from concept to commercialisation as well as fostering collaborations between academics, clinicians and industry. Kevin Kiely, as the joint founder and MD of the first Medilink, Yorkshire and Humber. “Our main goal is all about enhancing the competitiveness of the life science sector. We work with the ABCs – the academics, the businesses and the clinicians,” he says. “We put most of our thought and efforts in to the businesses, because they have to manufacture the medicine or device and develop the business model. If that isn’t in place then no matter now innovative the technology or urgent the patient need, you will never get the medicine to market.”

To make sure his company leads its sector, Kevin has compiled a board packed with experience of those ABCs. It includes Sir Andrew Cash OBE, a chief exec for more than 20 years; the vice-president for R&D at Smith & Nephew and the wonderfully-titled vice-president of global concept development at J&J DePuy as well as four MDs from smaller companies; academically, there is the pro-VC for Research and Innovation at Sheffield University and Leeds Universities.

That’s impressive and works in the three simple ways that any well-selected board should encompass. It brings a vast amount of knowledge and experience to assist in getting the basic job done for a member, whether that is business advice, manufacturing, medical science or education.

It is also an advert for the company. It shouts that it has the backing of high-profile people who are willing to put their names to it and further develop their careers with it.

So that depth of knowledge also means Medilink itself can be an innovator, and lead the growth of the sector under its own reputation, alongside that of its members.

“Innovation is a central part of what we do, but even catering trucks have ‘innovation’ written on them now, and the word can be white noise, so we have innovation experts with a serious amount of commercialisation experience. They will run open workshops which start with a clinical need and can

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INTERVIEW University of Leeds

“I think you should go into a company to listen and show sensitivity and respect to a chief exec and where he has come from and where he is on his journey. We need to have personable people with a friendly approach – not just a face in a suit.” bring out exciting projects.

“So at one end of the continuum, we can stimulate new projects, and at the other end there is procurement and adoption, how can we help companies sell into the NHS and work with the NHS to get products adopted.”

The fragmented make-up of the local trusts that form the NHS nationally are tricky to negotiate, particularly for smaller companies focused on innovation rather than sales.

The holistic nature of Medilink in Yorkshire and Humber means that the basic outline of an idea can be brought to its door, discussed and developed, financed, have comms and PR attached, and taken to market. It’s the full package.

“The nice thing about healthcare is that any product is global by definition,” says Kevin.

“Whatever problem you have, chances are people in Africa have the same issues. That’s very exciting from an economic development point of view.

“Our internationalisation team is contracted

by UKTI in Yorkshire to be its life science specialist, and nationally we are Trade Challenge Partner with UKTI, which means we bid for and execute UK pavilions around the world, including Africa, Brazil and Saudi.”

A strong reputation brings its own attention, and it has enabled Medilink to make a considerable impression in the skills arena.

Via the Sheffield LEP, it got funding to provide

free courses in innovation, PR and comms and will follow that up with social media courses – all for staff within life science companies.

This is the impact a dominant company can have on its sector. Like an idea that comes to Medilink’s door, the company itself had to be thought of, developed, structured, financed and brought to market.

Its business plan has been perfectly pitched and it is now in a position to lead changes within life sciences, and even dictate the sector’s future direction. If young companies and entrepreneuers have the vision to make that position one they would like to achieve, then initial success and growth are there to be attained, and the sector they work in is set for life, constantly expanding and developing as new ideas come from new minds joining the group.

“So, at one level we are a not-for-profit company offering commercial services, but we are also altruistic,” says Sheffield-born Kevin.

“You wouldn’t get the board and the supporters we have if we were just a private company here to make money. We are able to say we are transforming healthcare because of the ABCs and business being the meat in the sandwich. Without the businesses developing models and products, we wouldn’t see any advances in products and services for the NHS, so yes, we are transforming healthcare.”

Medilink began work with some priming

European money from the ERDF to back its work with SMEs. “These days, companies are also coming to us from outside the healthcare sector, but looking to diversify into it. Within a matter of weeks after the oil prices fell we had people contacting us, because clearly there are technologies that can equally be applied in each sector – which is quite exciting for us.

“If we can add value to seasoned healthcare companies, imagine how much we can add to people that have never been in healthcare before and know little about the phenomenally complex landscape. “I think you should go into a company to listen and show sensitivity and respect to a chief exec and where he(or she) has come from and where he/she is on the journey. We need to have personable people with a friendly approach – not just a face in a suit.” The successful three-year plan for the Yorkshire Medilink is coming to an end shortly, so Gary will be helping draw up the next phase of growth, with the national aim always being a fully-effective Medlink in each region, championing local innovation and combining to offer a single national entity. That means closer working with government agencies so that each applauds and accepts the other to provide complete coverage of the sector and the geography. The future will also embrace the Government’s encouragement of combinatorial technologies, bringing different sectors together so that the sum is bigger than the individual parts.

“I think we are already ahead of the world in this,” believes Kevin.

“Not only are we looking at how this will help satisfy an unmet need but, in parallel, we are looking at service delivery – how we can completely transform the service and not just do as we have always done. It is no good just tweaking this and that. We have to treat the systems differently.” For a man at the cutting edge of healthcare, Kevin’s regular regime of not having lunch, but getting his energy from “gallons of tea” might not exactly get top marks. But the energy is undeniable and the enthusiasm and sharpness with which he addresses the continuous growth of Medilink, and the sector it is a part of, is admirable.

Gallons of tea on the NHS? Perhaps not, but if they could bottle Kevin Kiely, you could certainly take that innovation to market. n

PROFILE AHSN

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Making change happen Richard Stubbs, Commercial Director of the Yorkshire & Humber Academic Health Science Network, speaks about his role and that of the AHSN in helping to diffuse the spread and adoption of innovation The NHS is changing. And as Academic Health Science Networks, we are at the forefront of that change. The vision for the future NHS, as set out by NHS England in their Five Year Forward View, is for a service that gives patients far greater control of their own care, a greater focus on wellbeing and prevention, and care that is delivered more locally or at home, with technology as a key enabler of safety, quality and convenience.

To deliver these transformational changes will require partnerships; this is not a vision that the NHS can reach by itself. And one of the most important relationships will be that between the health service and the wider health and care industry, particularly the innovators of today’s and tomorrow’s ground breaking technologies.

As Commercial Director of the Yorkshire and Humber AHSN my day job is to work with the NHS and industry to accelerate the adoption of ground-breaking innovation into front-line NHS use. It is at the same time the most inspiring, rewarding and yet frustrating job I have done in the health service to date.

Inspiring because it is a privilege to spend time with world class clinical and academic leaders, genius innovators and empowered patients, all of whom are contributing to producing gamechanging innovations that will revolutionise

In the AHSN we work alongside our industry colleagues every day to support them to develop technologies that will drive significant improvement into the system and empower patients to take control of their health

Richard Stubbs, Commercial Director Yorkshire & Humberside Academic Health Science Network

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PROFILE AHSN

the way that we deliver and afford services for future generations. Frustrating because the infrastructure to rapidly and efficiently spread these innovations in a way that ensures that every patient in the NHS benefits no matter which hospital or which GP practice they visit does not yet exist. As William Gibson said, “The future is already here - it’s just not very evenly distributed.”

The Yorkshire and Humber AHSN was created to help solve this spread and adoption challenge, and by doing so to simultaneously improve the quality of care for patients and power the growth of our scientific, research and manufacturing industries on behalf of UK plc.

The NHS is a complicated system. It is often difficult for an SME to know how to navigate to the most valuable conversation. AHSNs are here to provide advice, education, access to funding, signposting and profile raising to innovators with the greatest potential to make a difference to the NHS. And we also support the NHS itself to be a better customer to innovation, through better procurement, improving our culture, and articulating our clinical needs more clearly and more loudly.

The Yorkshire and Humber region contains a potent mix of transformational innovation, particularly with regard to our diagnostics and digital health expertise. As an AHSN we look to catalyse on the immense expertise in our region, earlier this summer we held a Diagnostics Symposium on behalf of the North of England in order to bring together like minded professionals to learn and understand the future revolution in healthcare through better diagnostics, particularly with the current advances with Genomics Medicines. In the AHSN we work alongside our industry colleagues every day to support them to develop technologies that will drive significant improvement into the system and empower patients to take control of their health. Much of our work centres on support and advice to improve the ability of innovators to be ‘noticed’ by key NHS influencers. This can take the form of access to health economic analysis (another jewel in the region’s crown), greater exposure through our Pilot Adoption Programme, or seed funding through our Proof of Concept calls to generate the essential evidence of impact and safety required for widespread adoption. We have many other tools that we have designed to help achieve our long term objectives, including our Innovation Scouts Network, where we have

Academic Health Science Networks – A Quick Overview The UK has always been at the forefront of world-class scientific discovery and healthcare delivery. Over a hundred and fifty years ago it was a British physician who invented the clinical thermometer. Over a hundred years ago it was a British Officer in the Indian Medical Service that first demonstrated that Mosquitos carried Malaria parasites, and over the past 60 years the National Health Service (NHS) has been at the envy of the rest of the world. Since the turn of the millennium, the pace of scientific invention and technological innovation has reached an exciting pace, perhaps never seen before throughout the history of mankind. The speed in which the interconnectedness of mobile devices and the ‘Internet of Things’ has happened and the development of new ways of creating tangible products through 3D printing are just examples of the breakthroughs which are and will change the way in which we operate on a day to day basis.

Recognising the size of the revolution that is happening as we speak, in 2013, the NHS in England created fifteen Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs) to act as a catalyst for the process of adoption and diffusion of innovation in order to bring the revolution into healthcare. As part of our role in facilitating change across the health economy, AHSNs are challenged with two key objectives; improving health and generating economic growth. AHSNs achieve these objectives by connecting health and social care, patients, academia and industry to bridge the gap between best practice and current practice.

Each of the fifteen AHSNs focus on a region of England, our region, the Yorkshire & Humber area, represents one of the largest geographies within the national network, with a population size of over five million. We are also fortunate that within this region, some of the most successful healthcare and academic institutions in the country including Sheffield Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Leeds Teaching Hospital Trust.

It is the role of AHSNs to provide a more conducive environment for industries to work more effectively with the NHS whilst remaining fixed on the goal of improving outcomes for patients.

Recognising the size of the revolution that is happening as we speak, in 2013, the NHS in England created fifteen Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs) to act as a catalyst for the process of adoption and diffusion of innovation in order to bring the revolution into healthcare trained frontline NHS staff in innovation strategy and intellectual property management to create an army of enthused and informed NHS staff who can now work together to share best practice, identify potential IP on behalf of their hospital and be receptive to new innovation as we identify and share it.

We have made a good start in the short time that AHSNs have been in existence, and the feedback from our industry partners has been excellent.

But there is still a long road ahead before the NHS can achieve its vision. In the coming months we will be creating a Digital Health Ecosystem for Yorkshire and Humber, as well as building on the tools that we have created to support the innovation adoption challenge.

If you would like to know more about our work please email info@yhahsn.com or visit our website www.yhahsn.org.uk