North's Life Sciences economy grows by £4bn in a year

TODAY the Northern Health Science Alliance can reveal the North’s economy has grown by 48% and over four billion pounds in the last year.

A new analysis of figures from HMG’s Office of Life Sciences, Strength and Opportunity 2017: the landscape of the medical technology and biopharmaceutical sectors in the UK report, provided by BioNow, has demonstrated that the value of the North’s life sciences economy has grown from £9.2bn in 2016 to £13.6bn in 2017 – a rise of 48% over the last year. This growth rate is 4.8% higher than the national average.

The data also shows that the Northern Powerhouse is home to 21% of the total UK Life Science sector workforce, 19% of the UK biopharmaceutical sector workforce, 22% of the UK Medical Technology Sector workforce and a very significant 29% of the UK Digital Health workforce.

The number of companies in Life Sciences in the Northern Powerhouse has grown by 755 in the past year. Dr Hakim Yadi, CEO of the Northern Health Science Alliance will be revealing the figures tomorrow at the third day of Northern Powerhouse Business Summit ‘Great Futures’ taking place in Newcastle as a part of the Great Exhibition of the North. He will be speaking on the Government’s Industrial Strategy Grand Challenges in Ageing and Artificial Intelligence and the North’s expertise and potential in those areas.

Dr Yadi said: “The North’s Life Sciences Economy is booming as shown by this incredible growth that’s taken place over the past two years.

“The North of England has a tremendous opportunity to make the most of its excellent universities, hospitals and booming life sciences industry to meet the challenges of an ageing population and to harness the power of AI for the benefit of the UK as a whole.

“The region has national centres in ageing, digital health, anti-microbial resistance, cancer research and health data. It is again pioneering treatments in and using these capabilities supported by business confidence of £1.6bn of planned investments. “The creativity and tenacity that has characterised the North of the past continues to this day and will continue to do so well into the future.”

Minister of State at the Department for International Trade, Baroness Fairhead, said:

“The UK is a world leader in the life sciences sector, with our businesses, including from the region covered by Northern Health Science Alliance, at the forefront of innovation in healthcare, medical technology and biosciences. “DIT will continue to support British businesses in the Life Sciences sector to sell to overseas markets through our wide-ranging support offer.

“This offer includes our award-winning export credit agency, UK Export Finance, which helps fund companies seeking to grow their sales overseas, Innovate UK, which funds businesses to develop their novel ideas and our specialist Life Sciences sector team who offer detailed market and business support.”

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