'Change your ways' life scientists told

THE Scottish Government's chief scientific adviser has criticised the country's life sciences companies for not being easy to work with and for failing to pull in enough investment or good people.

Professor Anne Glover urged the life sciences community "to change your ways and be less conservative" or else get left behind in the investment stakes.

Failure to present the right image - one of being easy to work with - means failure to attract venture capital funds, which are becoming increasingly difficult to secure in the current economic climate, she told a gathering of life sciences company leaders in Edinburgh.

When it comes to attracting VC money "the sector doesn't help itself", she said, adding that people in the sector need to talk to the business world more to find out what life sciences skills are commercially relevant.

"To the outside world Scotland is utterly tiny, a mere speck on the life sciences landscape. Yet the intensity of what we achieve on the research front is absolutely amazing.

"Scotland is number one in the world in terms of research impact against our GDP. We beat the rest of the UK, the US, Japan, France, Germany and other prominent economies."

Glover said that was the good news. "However, although we are great at what we do, life sciences in Scotland is viewed abroad as not being particularly easy to work with.

"This means that we do not do well when it comes to either pulling in the best people to Scotland or attracting investment.

"I do not mean small amounts, but shed-loads of VC money to match our undoubted world-class research and ideas.

"We find it hard to attract such funds here in Scotland and this is a hurdle we must address, especially when it comes to collaboration."

Glover is currently engaged in helping to formulate a new life sciences strategy for Scotland and she said the country was "pretty good" at the standard of skills at the top level.

"But the sector needs to speak to business to ensure they get the right calibre of people to help make those businesses work."

There are what Glover described as a "huge number" of life sciences and biotechnology networking organisations in Scotland.

"Many people think there are way too many … and such bodies can sometimes be guilty of not thinking of the bigger picture. In other words there should be more thinking along the lines of 'Team Scotland' rather than 'Team Me'."

Glover urged the sector to professionalise its collaboration efforts, be more imaginative with its intellectual property, and make what investment it does attract pay.

"Only then can Scotland become the compelling location of choice for life sciences in Europe," she added.

Nexxus, based in Glasgow and at Roslin, has issued a timely report urging the life sciences sector to "think like an investor."

A young life sciences company looking for finance should avoid sending out unsolicited copies of its business plan to every VC firm it can find.

The chances of securing funds by this method "are in the same form of magnitude as those of winning the lottery - in other words, remote."

It is possible to shorten the odds substantially, by understanding how investors think and how they find the companies in which they want to invest.