BioQuarter chief Mike Capaldi says Scots can cash in on Big Pharma cutbacks

SCOTLAND should capitalise on a gap in the market as big pharmaceutical companies scale back research and development, according to the man charged with commercialising Edinburgh BioQuarter ideas.

Mike Capaldi said he aims to build on existing relationships with firms such as Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Toshiba to attract others.

Edinburgh BioQuarter – which brings together Scottish Enterprise, Edinburgh University, NHS Lothian and Alexandria Real Estates Equities on a site next to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary – aims to create 6,500 jobs and attract 250 million investment in the next 15 years.

Capaldi said the partnership would be at the Bio convention in Chicago in May as part of efforts to lure big US pharma companies to set up R&D bases in Scotland. They are already looking at ways to cut R&D costs, with UK giant AstraZeneca announcing this month plans to cut 3,500 posts globally. Rival GSK revealed last month it was consulting over similar job cuts.

Capaldi, who will take up his commercialisation director post full time next month, insists Scotland can take advantage of such cutbacks by partnering with companies to carry out research. He said: "We know big pharmas are increasingly interested in doing early stage research with places like Edinburgh because they're cutting back on internal research.

"There are also aspects of research in Edinburgh that are world-class. Those are the areas where we can particularly interest industry."

Although Capaldi is yet to carry out his audit of research within the university and NHS board, he highlighted regenerative medicine as an obvious area in which Edinburgh led.

The first building on the science campus at ERI will be the Scottish Centre for Regenerative Medicine, headed by Sir Ian Wilmut of Dolly the Sheep fame.

Capaldi said he will undertake an audit and then look at other pieces of intellectual property that could be licensed to industry or used to form spin-outs.

But Graeme Boyle, director of Nexxus, the body that brings together life science academics, clinicians and entrepreneurs to share ideas,

added: "We have to make sure we can retain as much value as possible locally."