Merger to offer new life science openings

SCOTTISH life science companies are expected to gain access to a raft of new business opportunities on the back of the merger of two industry bodies north of the Border.

Nexxus - the networking organisation that brings together industrialists, medics and academics - will this week take over the running of the Scottish Bioinformatics Forum (SBF).

The forum was set up by Scottish Enterprise in 2001 to promote Scotland as a centre for "bioinformatics", which brings together biology and computer science to examine trends in data and how technology can be used in medicine.

The project had previously been run by the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Graeme Boyle, director of Nexxus, said: "When the SBF was set up, it was really ahead of its time. Scotland has become a global leader when it comes to bioinformatics, and the rest of the UK and Europe is only just waking up to the importance of this field.

"We've got a good opportunity here to build on the good work SBF has already done in academia and open out opportunities in bioinformatics to more firms."

Boyle added: "A lot of the bioinformatics work so far has focused on using computer science to look at DNA and data on that kind of laboratory scale.

"But I think there are also big opportunities for companies to bring bioinformatics to bear on databases and other forms of information on a more practical scale, looking at trends for diseases and other forms of analysis."

Boyle said the merger of Nexxus and SBF would also make it easier to promote Scotland abroad.

"The work being done by the Scottish Academic Health Sciences Collaboration (SAHSC) - which brings together universities and health boards - is making Scotland a more attractive place to carry out clinical trials for the big pharmaceutical companies," he said.

"By exploiting our position in bioinformatics, we can make Scotland even more attractive. There are some great opportunities here for firms to turn their attention to this area."