Scottish Development International (SDI), the inward investment and export trade arm of the Scottish government is keen to woo Indian biotech and pharma companies to benefit from the life sciences infrastructure covering labs and pilot production plants and manufacturing houses.
In order to enable innovations and collaborations, SDI has highlighted that Scotland has funding mechanisms to support R&D including R&D tax credits, tax credit support for larger companies, patent box. There are active angel investors and VC funds dedicated to life sciences. The country is also home to leading universities.
The Scottish government offers several business support programmes, including Smart: Scotland, which complements UK government’s Technology Strategy Board, Biomedical Catalyst, and the European Union’s Horizon 2020. Further, there is Epidarex Capital which is a £47.5m venture capital fund, dedicated to investment in promising Scottish life sciences start-up companies. Scottish Investment Bank in 2014, invested £6.3 million in 26 life sciences companies leveraging £46 million of funding.
Further, there is also a strong pharmaceutical services sector including CROs and CMOs. The biggest advantage for Indian companies to invest in Scotland is its connectivity to rest of UK, Europe and ROW.
There are also several pharma and biotech companies from Scotland that are looking to collaborate with Indian enterprises.
At the a meet organised in Bengaluru had representatives from India pharma and biotech industry who included Dr. Rashmi Barbhaiya – CEO & MD, Advinus, Bindhya Cariappa – COO & EVP, Emerging Markets, Clintec International, KK Narayanan, managing director, Metahelix, Dr. Goutam Das – COO, ABLE and Rooma Bussi, country head, SDI India.
With Indian biotech and pharma industry looking to modernise infrastructure, SDI is of the view that these companies would be able to achieve high growth potential, SDI highlighted.
Scotland’s life sciences sector includes human health biology and biotechnology including industrial, marine, pharmaceutical and agricultural biotechnology and animal health, according to Dr. Sharon McKendry, life sciences & chemical sciences international sector head, Scottish Development International.
It was highlighted that global facilities including Edinburgh BioQuarter a £600m or $1bn centre for biomedical commercialisation and Scottish Centre for Regenerative Medicine will give Indian companies much to benefit.
Some of the leading life sciences innovator companies include Touch Bionics which launched the i-LIMB hand, the first powered prosthetic hand to incorporate articulating fingers. Toshiba Medical Visualization is a specialist in advanced visualisation solutions for the medical imaging market. Institute for Medical Science and Technology (IMSaT) at Dundee encourages partnership with biotech and pharma industry in diagnostics and therapeutic imaging, drug delivery, regenerative medicine and minimally invasive surgical techniques.