Medicines Discovery Catapult’s statement in response to the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Mansion House speech on 10 July.
Professor Chris Molloy, CEO, Medicines Discovery Catapult:
“We welcome the Chancellor’s plan to fuel high-value, high growth UK life sciences companies. It bonds the nation’s strengths as a global biotech and financial hub.
But, money only follows great science and great people with a great plan.
So, the UK must now join forces in a translational challenge to create more ‘fit-to-fund’ SMEs over the next two years. This call to action will bring together universities, Catapults, trade bodies, accelerators and the finance community to purposefully craft the UK’s very best science into new treatments, for patients and returns for pension funds. The UK already hosts over 250 early stage pre-seed to Series A therapeutics start-ups.
We should have more. We can act together to do more.
The life sciences sector is among the most valuable and strategically important to the UK economy: critical to the country’s future health, wealth, and resilience. The Medicines Discovery Catapult’s collaborative R&D has helped UK biotechs de-risk their programmes and raise over £600m in private funding in the last five years.”
