UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) and the Association of Biotech Led Enterprise (ABLE) India have signed a memorandum of understanding to encourage and develop collaborative opportunities between the lifesciences companies in the two countries.

The pact is a milestone for the UK Oncology Mission, which is on a tri-city tour to Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai from September 2 to 7, 2013. The 12-member UK delegation comprises prominent members from universities, healthcare companies, cancer research organizations and healthcare providers such as diagnostics and drug delivery systems.

“Oncology is a key area of concern in the UK and in India. This mission is here to firm up relations on some extremely innovative work in the area of oncology. UK-India Joint Innovation in the discovery and delivery of oncology will help to make this element of healthcare accessible and affordable to patients in both countries,” said Ian Felton, British deputy high commissioner.

“We are looking to collaborate on a range of opportunities including oncology. Cancer represents one of the most challenging diseases areas that requires researchers and clinicians to work together at a global level. We recognise the importance of this delegation and appreciate its purpose,” stated Dr P M Murali, president, ABLE.

The MoU aims at combining UK’s heritage and leadership in the area of healthcare and Life Sciences and India’s emerging and thriving healthcare ecosystem to promote and develop the Life Sciences sector in both countries. ABLE and UKTI also run the Core Initiative Groups in different sector strands in Life Sciences.  The partnership will include the participation of UK and Indian experts in Life Sciences in the areas of industry, research and trade. It will further promote UK and India as each other's partner of choice in Life Sciences such as drug discovery, bioinformatics, regenerative medicine, clinical research, agri-bio, oncology and regulation. This will be done through on-going research and discussion, identifying areas of potential business opportunity that can be addressed by Indian and UK firms.

The delegation also participated in two roundtable discussions with other industry experts. The focus of the first roundtable was discovery research in cancer, IP and its effects, opportunities for licensing to Indian companies, diagnostics research and new biomarkers. The second roundtable focussed on healthcare aspects such as medical technology companies, access to large hospitals and distributors in India.