SubscribeThe South West of England is a major centre of biotechnology excellence with internationally recognised expertise covering everything from marine and environmental technologies, pharmaceuticals for healthcare to food technology.
The sector employs around 8,000 people and has the potential to triple in size during the next 20 years.
The various biotechnology-related activities in the Lifescience sector are concentrated in five geographical areas schematically.
The clusters are centred on Research Organisations and Higher Education Institutions at Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth, Plymouth Marine Laboratory, the Health Protection Agency and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratories.
Related to this, SMEs will locate on science parks where there are strong networking and collaboratory links between companies and education institutions.
The South West has several such facilities at Royal Cornwall & Devon NHS Trust, Knowledge SPA and Medi-Mark, Tamar Science and Medi-Park in Plymouth, Winfrith Science Park in Dorset and Tetricus Ltd Science Park in Wiltshire.
A new science park at Emerson’s Green in Bristol is also planned. University linked incubators also exist at Exeter and a small facility is planned in Bath.
BioApproaches SW membership of +160 includes all these well established organisations, 110 of which are in Pharma, Healthcare and Diagnostics key to the future development of a SW Medilink in line with SWRDA strategy.
The region supports:
- 12 Agbio companies eg. the multinational Danisco Ltd
- 27 diagnostic and analytic companies, e.g. Axiom Laboratories and Acolyte Biomedica Ltd
- 13 Environmental companies such as world renowned Astra Zeneca Brixham Environmental Laboratories
- 56 Healthcare related companies ie the world renowned Health Protection Agency
- 7 MarineBio linked organisations, including centres of worldclass excellence such as Plymouth Marine Laboratory
- Over 50 Service and specialist technology providers including Camden and Chorley Food Research Association, Tripos Receptor Research and the multinationals Merck Ltd, Sigma-Aldrich, VWR and West Pharmaceutical Service Ltd.
A staggering £353 million is contributed to the South West economy from a core of some 150 companies in the region. These biotech companies are linked in an upstream supply, which in turn contribute £10.5 billion to the region’s economy.
