11 May INTERVIEW WITH CARI-ANNE QUINN, CEO, LIFE SCIENCES HUB WALES
Cari-Anne Quinn, CEO, Life Sciences Hub Wales, explains the company’s role of building on Wales’ strengths in healthcare innovation, working with industry and academia to make ideas a reality adopted into the system
Why has the life sciences sector grown so much in the last decade, and what kind of niche capabilities does it currently have?
The life sciences sector in Wales employs around 12,500 people and has contributed $2.4 billion. In recent years, the sector’s contribution has continued to grow which has been absolutely fantastic.
In the last couple of years, in particular, here in Wales there has been a reframing of the relationship between the life sciences sector and health. As a population, we are far more appreciative of the work of the sector, and it has become far more widely understood across the region. Interestingly, some of the language that I have become used to when engaging with the life sciences sector — diagnostics and PCRs, for instance — have become household names.
Wales is absolutely part of the global marketplace and the life sciences sector as a whole is a global industry. We work with companies that are based here as well as internationally based companies to ensure that the health systems and the social care system here locally has access to technologies and new health solutions.
As absolutely challenging and heartbreaking as the pandemic has been, the realignment of the relationship between health and social care on the one hand and industry on the other has enabled conversations about new ways of working and systemic change.
One of the key strengths in Wales — a region with a population of just over 3 million — is an integrated health system that is large enough to be significant but small enough to be able to get lots of decision-makers in a room together to talk about health innovation positively and proactively. This offers a real opportunity for industry to engage, to think about new ways of working, to try out new areas of R&D, to embrace innovation, and — ultimately — to bring some of these new products and services into real situations.
All the life sciences industries will need access to patients as they are developing products and services that will have a patient benefit. Our work at Life Sciences Hub Wales is very much about supporting the population of Wales and ensuring that those relationships and discussions are progressing.
As far as particular strengths in the region are concerned, Wales is recognized as a key center of excellence and a key strength in the UK context in medical technologies. That takes us through a broad brush of areas from diagnostics to medical devices and, of course, the whole digital technology spectrum. At the Life Sciences Hub, we focus on digital in its broadest context, including digital software systems and applications, as well as robotics, artificial intelligence and machine learning for use in a health context.
We are also starting to work with technologies that are supporting the health system to run more efficiently and effectively. Health services have been under immense pressure for a long time, and technology offers some major solutions to support it. They are being put forward from industry and we are privileged to be working in a sector that brings these inspirational, innovative health technologies to the marketplace.
Another of Wales’ strengths is precision medicine: identifying disease areas and utilizing our academic strengths to work with industry to develop new solutions and techniques. We see neuroscience as among our key strengths. From an academic perspective we are strong, and research is currently underway to support the challenges of dementia.
Wales has played a leading role in genomic sequencing, something that came to the fore during the pandemic as we were able to identify new strands of the virus as they evolved. Our strength within genomics is something that Wales is continuing to invest in, and we work with a number of global organizations to again bring forward ways of further utilizing the outputs of genomic sequencing to develop new products and services to be used in a health context.
Then, specifically around regenerative medicine which falls within that precision medicine area, we have a key strength in wound care and advanced therapies. Cell and gene therapy is one area that the region has been investing in and we have been able to work with organizations who have been developing some CAR T trials in the hospital system here in Cardiff.
There really is a lot of innovation taking place across the region with lots of pockets of really exciting and good work. One of our key strengths in Wales is being able to look at that in the context of the whole system. Our role within Life Sciences Hub Wales is to build on some of those strengths and support health innovation identification and development through to adoption –– that key premise of being able to work for the benefit of the entire population.
Can you give us an overview of the kinds of success that Life Sciences Hub Wales has had in recent years? What kind of strategies and programs is the organization implementing to develop the sector and the greater Welsh economy?
Life Sciences Hub Wales is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Welsh government. We were set up to work collaboratively across the health and life sciences industry sectors as well as with academia. Our main focus in terms of our broad strategic direction is supporting the identification, development and adoption of innovation. We have a strong vision of making Wales the place of choice for healthcare and wellbeing innovation.
It’s all about working with organizations as they work through the innovation pathway. This means taking ideas and challenges from a health context in order to understand what the health system is grappling with at the moment. Then, it’s about deciding which areas they need to develop, before working with industry directly to either identify solutions that already exist or to develop R&D and innovative solutions that can evolve and be brought forward as solutions to support the health system.
We have been working in this way since 2018 and for a large portion of the period between then and now we have also been involved in the pandemic. Health initiatives were key to being able to bring forward rapid solutions. We see ourselves as a convener of the right kind of people and we focus our work on delivering specific solutions.
Think of the various stages of an innovation pathway where industry needs to work with key delivery partners in the health innovation landscape; we work alongside those organizations to guide them through the different stages and help them develop the solutions needed. We have a small, dedicated team of professionals who are there to support businesses during that journey. It’s essential for us to ensure that we are coordinating discussions between the various parties; for instance, we might need to convey a health colleague’s needs so as to ensure they are being translated effectively, and that industry agrees as to what is needed.
Our offering is very much solutions-based, always focusing on that end result. We may sometimes help companies perform sector intelligence to understand what products and services already exist, or where new R&D solutions could be beneficial. We may also sometimes work with organizations like the Cardiff City Region or UK funding agencies to identify sources of financial support for companies.
What kind of key technologies are currently being looked at to improve the Welsh life sciences sector, and what is the organization’s role in digitizing healthcare?
We play a key role in convening; bringing the right organizations together so that they can share ideas and ways of working. Our digital health ecosystem is a great forum for being able to bring those partners together. Our members are primarily from within Wales, but we also have reasonably strong cohorts of individuals joining us from outside the region who are keen to be working within this space. We run a special interest group for artificial intelligence, too, which meets monthly to share products and projects.
We have worked with several companies in the last couple of years to help them prepare business plans and business cases in order to attract public funding to support the development of their products and services. In fact, we have been able to bring forward some particular delivery sites within the Wales health system to enable these digital and AI technologies to be rolled out across the region. This has included working to support project management in order to enable some of these technologies to be utilized in trials. Being able to gather real-life evidence that supports the development of products and new ways of working is a key step in the innovation pathway for health.
In Wales, there is also a strong focus within the health sector on embracing values-based healthcare. Multinational companies, the likes of Pfizer, will regularly cite Wales as being one of their key global partners for embedding some of their ambitious strategic plans because of this focus.
Products utilizing artificial intelligence to support screening processes are vital to reduce pressure on the NHS workforce, freeing colleagues up to focus on the most urgent cases and individuals. We have been making great strides on digital initiatives focusing on prevention, be that monitoring cardiac activity remotely to help individuals take better care of themselves, or creating an app for wound care and other solutions that reduce the number of home visits the district nurse will need to make to a patient’s premises.
Essentially, by enabling the system to operate much more efficiently, we can make changes to the way we are working and operating. Some of these technologies have been crucial throughout the COVID-19 period where face-to-face contact has been required to reduce and minimize. We are pleased to say that a number of these initiatives are continuing now as we move through to more of a business-as-usual focus, recognizing that we are still obviously living with the pandemic.
The national robotics program, started last year, has the potential to transform the way surgery is tackled here in Wales by enabling cutting-edge technology within this space to be utilized, both by speeding up recovery times and reducing the surgery time. There is just so much going on, making it a fantastic sector in which to be working. Wales is creating an environment that will be of interest to the global life sciences sector, as they gather the evidence and information needed to take their products and services on a global journey.
How would you assess the level of support given to up-and-coming enterprises by the government? What shining stars are we seeing in Wales’s life sciences SMEs?
Of the 400 life sciences businesses that we have here in Wales, the majority — probably 90% of them — would fall into the SME category. It is a buoyant ecosystem, and we are seeing that a lot of these SME organizations are not only strong within the region but are actually successful exporters and able to work on a UK-wide and international basis.
Various among these exciting SMEs are building a strong reputation with a global footprint. One company — TrakCel — tracks stem cells throughout their journey and has contracts with multinational businesses all around the world. It is a market leader for stem cell tracking and has been on a robust growth journey across Wales.
There has been an upsurge in the use of virtual reality in the health space and there are one or two small SMEs based in Wales that have worked hard to develop novel health solutions, such as using destruction therapy for pediatrics and using VR to support it.
Others are also using such technologies to support wellness and wellbeing for health staff and health colleagues. Life Sciences Hub Wales has a partnership with three of our universities and is leading a European-funded program at the moment, called Accelerate. It is a health technology accelerator working primarily with SMEs to bring forward new, innovative healthcare solutions, details of which can be found on our website.
In essence, we are working with businesses to unite them with academia to develop solutions that will meet the needs of the health system. The message underpinning everything we do is joining the technology and the innovators with some kind of academic support, thereby ensuring that there is an engagement and a mechanism enabling the idea to come through to the health system.
We are starting to see a shift within the health sector, in which prevention is being truly embraced. From a practical perspective, this means working with individuals to support their wellness, thereby reducing some of the requirements they may have on a health system. In the UK we have a publicly funded health system and a growing appetite from the broader population for people to take more responsibility for their healthcare journey.
What would you say are your top goals and ambitions as CEO of Life Sciences Hub Wales? What kind of possibilities exist for the country’s life sciences sector and what needs to be overcome for it to reach its potential?
There has been a shift in engagement between the health industry and academia. In the last two years, those key organizations and institutions were all coming together to achieve a shared vision. They were working towards a single solution. From a Life Sciences Hub Wales perspective, we want to work with health colleagues to maintain that joint vision across health in order to maintain dialogue with industry.
We saw progress in product development with vaccines being developed at a rapid pace during the pandemic. The question is how to now play our part in Wales to support health missions that can also consider other health challenges in a similar vein, meaning organizations can work collaboratively to generate solutions. There is something about being able to marshal the whole sector and we see that very much as a role that Life Sciences Hub Wales can play.
Now feels like a very critical time to seize the existing opportunities for significant progress, and it comes down to maintaining the overall momentum. We see our organization as taking a lead to bring forward that way of working; as being able to navigate the system and orchestrate engagement in a way that delivers success.
As CEO of Life Sciences Hub Wales, I am very conscious that we are a facilitator organization. We facilitate innovation, but success comes from others. It is only by encouraging that ecosystem and all stakeholders to work together that we are going to realize change and new ways of working. This is an agenda that is being led by the Welsh government and being driven by industry, the health service and social care. We see social care as being a key proponent of our integrated health system. Success for us means that people can access health services closer to home and live well, healthily and safely in a home environment for longer. Equally, it means specialist services being available when people need them and in the right kind of setting.
This is such a key agenda for us but also for other economies around the world. In our case, we want to not only support the economy in Wales in terms of life sciences and working with life sciences businesses, but also be a key enabler for the whole economy. If people are well for longer and can recover more quickly from health conditions, it has a significant positive impact on the overall economic landscape.
No Comments