'Super syndicates' to help Scots science firms grow

SENIOR figures from the Scottish life sciences sector are working with their European counterparts to promote medical diagnostic firms and help them tap into a multi-billion-pound emerging market.

Graeme Boyle, director of Nexxus, the Scottish body that brings together businesses, universities and the NHS, said the European Diagnostic Clusters Association (EDCA) could be launched as early as the spring.

The new group will help businesses to form partnerships across Europe and attract new sources of funding.

Boyle said the association may also stimulate joint ventures between large pharmaceutical companies and smaller life science players carrying out basic science research.

He highlighted the opportunities for Scottish firms in the "personalised medicine" market, in which treatments or drugs are developed for specific patients rather than with a blanket approach for individual diseases.

Accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that the personalised medicine market in the United States alone will be worth $452 billion (289bn) by 2015.

The EDCA would work across a broad range of sectors, from biological markers used to trace diseases through to medical devices used for treatments.

Boyle added: "Specifically, Nexxus will be working with the Oxford BioNetwork to look at access to markets on a European level and also routes to markets for small companies.

"By working with business angels across Europe to form super-syndicates, we may also be able to free up some new sources of funding for life science companies, encouraging angels in say Belgium or the south of France to look at Scottish investments."

Till Bachmann, chief operating officer and head of bio-chip research at Edinburgh University's division of pathway medicine, is chairman of the Nexxus steering group in the east of Scotland and has been leading on the EDCA project from a Scottish perspective.

The next planning meeting for the EDCA is on 18 January and the association could be up and running by the spring. The project also has the backing of the European Commission.

Kevin Moore, managing director of life science consultancy Business Therapies, welcomed news of the new association.

Moore - who founded Scotlab, one of the country's most successful life science companies, in 1977 before selling the firm to Diploma and setting up his consultancy service in 1997 - said that it was important for small firms to internationalise their business.

He added: "A network like this could help to take the risk out of entering a new market by allowing firms to share local knowledge. If firms are prepared to work together then they could reap real benefits from these kind of partnerships."

Moore has worked extensively with Scottish Enterprise to help launch life science companies from universities and help them find routes to market.