Special Report - Healthcare & Life Sciences

Dec 11 2006 By Dr Ian Robson, The Journal

Dr Ian Robson, Business Development Director, CELS.

Healthcare currently represents a large slice of the region's economy. More than 5,000 organisations, £4bn annual turnover and 140,000 jobs are involved. In future, healthcare will be even more important to the region as other industrial sectors, particularly those involving low added value manufacturing, shrink due to fierce overseas competition.

With the shift towards a knowledge-based economy, healthcare enjoys a prominent position in the region's strategic growth plans and its Regional Economic Strategy - with three of the four key themes of the Science City initiative involving healthcare. The North-East is also a national field leader, helping to steer the healthcare activities of other regions through a central inter-regional development agency network.

With five universities, the region has pioneered groundbreaking scientific research over recent years. One example is the stem cell work undertaken by scientists at Newcastle and Durham universities, which formed the basis of the new North-East Stem Cell Institute which plans to create 200 high-level new jobs over coming years.

As well as this, the region also has outstanding capability in subjects such as ageing, cancer and immunotherapy. The Institute for Ageing and Health carries out research on ageing and age-related illnesses and has the UK's biggest interdisciplinary research group in this field. This ranges from fundamental research on molecular mechanisms of ageing through to practical lifestyle issues, such as housing, assistive technology and transport.

In essence, the healthcare sector is made up of three main parts - research expertise in our universities, clinical excellence in our hospitals and a rapidly expanding industrial base. Together, these three elements are helping to build a global reputation for North-East England as the place to do healthcare business.

Having agreed ambitious growth plans, much is already being done to secure the region's position in the thriving global healthcare economy. Business incubators for start-up healthcare companies have been opened, regional institutes such as the North-East Stem Cell Institute and the Biosystems Informatics Institute are expanding and plans for a major new Campus for Ageing and Vitality - as well as for developing the Science Central site in the heart of Newcastle - are well under way.

Such is the region's potential that the Centre of Excellence for Life Sciences (CELS), the organisation founded by One NorthEast to steer this sector, plans to grow the healthcare economy by no less than £1bn per year by 2015.

This will be done in three main ways - by building and managing first-class business and research infrastructure, by placing the region on the world stage through internationally recognised networks and thirdly, by managing emerging technology and stimulating the formation of new business ventures.

With regard to the first of these, CELS recently opened new, high-specification incubator facilities for healthcare businesses in Newcastle University's medical school and is currently developing additional space at the International Centre for Life in Newcastle.

There are plans for healthcare-based business park developments ranging from Northumberland in the north of the region to Netpark in the south. CELS is also involved in plans for a regional protein analytical facility, an assistive technology laboratory, an advanced centre for the production of stem cells to GMP standards and new, high-grade imaging facilities.

With regard to networks, CELS manages the Healthcare Network, a support service for the region's many healthcare companies, and Bionet, a network of 1,200 healthcare and life science researchers in the region. CELS also acts as the regional hub for a number of UK networks and trade associations - and is currently developing trading links with governments, business parks and healthcare clusters around the world.

The third area is technology management - and CELS is involved in a wide range of relevant activities. These range from acting as the commercial agent for the North-East Stem Cell Institute to assisting individual companies with commercialisation and business plans. CELS also created and co-manages InStep, a regional design initiative for the development of innovative healthcare technology.

The region has the International Centre for Life - the UK's first bio-science village and widely recognised as a dynamic initiative that promotes research and nurtures small companies in this field - and hosts global companies such as Sanofi-Aventis and Avecia, as well as home-grown talent such as Helena Biosciences Europe, Angel Biotechnology, ImmunoDiagnostic Systems and The Specials Laboratory.

With so much on offer, it's no surprise that healthcare will become the North-East's next industrial revolution.

For more information about healthcare and life science activities in North-East England, visit:

CELS - www.celsatlife.com

CELS Healthcare Network - www.hcnetnee.com

BioNEt - www.bionetatcels.com

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Transforming North's Science City

The North-East has quickly become recognised as a world-class centre of excellence in life science and health care - Newcastle's Science City will provide the catalyst to help take that expertise to the next level.

Newcastle was designated a "Science City" by Chancellor Gordon Brown in 2004, a status it shares with five other cities in the UK.

The Newcastle Science City (NSC) programme recognises that science and innovation are key drivers of regional and local economic development, and that the commercialisation of research happens most effectively over time at a relatively local level.

The North-East has a wealth of cutting-edge research and development expertise in both universities and businesses. It also has a number of successful Centres of Excellence, such as CELS.

Building on this excellent base, NSC is now developing and implementing a range of activities. Altogether, they aim to build a critical mass of interacting research, clinical and business activities in an attractive urban environment.

Within the region's scientific research base, the universities' capabilities will be combined with new approaches to university-business collaboration to generate a number of multi-disciplinary research initiatives, each of which will be focused on particular areas of science.

Each initiative will contribute on industrially-focused research, with great potential to attract substantial private sector involvement and collaborative partners internationally. They will focus on niches within the following areas:

* Stem cell biology and regenerative medicine, building upon the recent success at the Centre for Life, and the academic strengths of Newcastle and Durham Universities.

* Ageing and health, building upon the Institute for Ageing and Health, already the largest in Europe, to develop new research capacity, as well as to address the issues of an ageing population, particularly the development of assistive technologies, thereby creating new economic activity.

* Molecular engineering, bringing together converging disciplines of chemical engineering, chemistry, physics, engineering and nanotechnology, including the DTI-funded University Innovation Centre.

* Energy and environment, developing multi-disciplinary strengths by engaging with industrial partners.

At the end of last year, One NorthEast, Newcastle City Council and Newcastle University bought the former Scottish and Newcastle Brewery site for £33million to provide one of the physical hubs for Science City.

Now, Science City has taken its latest stride towards becoming reality with the appointment of the planning consultancy EDAW as the preferred master planners for the project.

The practice - involved with the award-winning regeneration of Newcastle's Grainger town and is currently developing an Olympic plan for the 2012 games - will lead a team of planners, architects, civil engineers and property surveyors to transform the former brewery site in Newcastle's City Centre.

The team's remit is to work with the brewery site's three owners and a range of other stakeholders to masterplan the area to incorporate research and business facilities alongside a range of residential, retail and leisure amenities.

Master planning the site will begin as soon as the contract is signed between EDAW and the three partners and is expected to be complete next summer. It is hoped that building work will start on the site at the end of next year.

This will be a major physical focus of the Science City activity, integrating research, business accommodation, education, public engagement and business support in an iconic mixed-use development.

NSC's impact will extend far beyond its scientific legacy and provide long-term benefits to the region, harnessing the economic potential of science and technology, and creating new jobs and businesses.

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