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LONDON, 6th September 2017: Life sciences  leaders from around India and Europe gathered for the third annual bioConclave 2017 in London today. The bioConclave is annual conference to bring together industry leaders from India and Europe together.

Industry leaders in bioConclave 2017

BioConclave 2017 started with keynote speaker and Executive Chair of Genomics England Sir John Chisholm  talking about how bioinformaticians were the “jedi knights” of healthcare, focusing on the great strides the 10,000 Genome Project has made and how it could impact every aspect of life sciences and healthcare. “Every step we take helps us understanding the genome a little better,” said Sir Chisholm.

Hitesh Thakrar, Partner at Sycona Investment Management, focused on the convergence of life and data sciences, highlighting the expansion many of Sycona’s portfolio companies had been through in recent years.

Dr James Wilkie, CEO of University of Birmingham Enterprise, highlighted that just this year £65m of investment that had gone into life sciences research just in the Birmingham innovation cluster he heads. It now employs 13,500 people and represents 15% of all life sciences activity in the UK.

Innovation Showcases in bioconclave 2017

Much of the rest of the day focused on innovation showcases from leading companies from India, Europe and the UK. Among those included Hyderabad-based Cellix Bio, which has a portfolio of over 143 international patents published, with 70 US patents approved or pending in diverse therapeutic areas; Sequoia-backed, Mumbai-based Koye Pharmacueticals; and innovative stem cells company from Gujarat, Total Potential Cells.

In a sign that the bioConclave has become a place for companies from around Europe to come together, senior representatives from Imperial Innovations, UCL Partners, the Welsh government, Department for International Trade, Manchester Science Park, Leeds City Region and Hauts-de-France came together at the event.

Sabeena Kalla, the Scientific and Evaluation Director of the Eurasanté biohub in Lille outlined how Hauts-de-France had been successful in attracting nearly a dozen major Indian companies in recent years and boasted one of the most comprehensive life sciences ecosystems in Europe.

Head of the life sciences practice at bioConclave hosts Penningtons Manches, Chris Shelley, explained to the international audience the potential impact of Brexit on the industry. His practice has won three ‘Law Firm of the Year’ prizes in the last 12 months.

Urvashi Prasad, Public Policy specialist at Indian government think tank NITI Aayog outlined the immense market potential of India.

bioConclave 2018

The next bioConclave will be held on 26th June 2018 at the world’s biggest business event, the International Business Festival in Liverpool. Full details are here.