Leicestershire and surrounding areas have a healthy and large population of life sciences SME's, and Life Science is a priority sector for the region. It is however well recognised that scaling life science business is exceptionally difficult: 64% of UK life sciences companies have used equity investment to grow; 54% have received innovation grants, with 44% receiving grants over £100k, 32% have been spun-out from academic institutions—that’s ten times the rate across all sectors, only 9% have achieved 20% scaleup status (Beauhurst 2019).
This event is designed to connect our life science businesses to companies that have successfully scaled, to drive knowledge exchange between successful entrepreneurs, academia and business experts and start to develop a local community of expertise to accelerate our companies to grow and scale. All participants at this event will receive a place on our exclusive follow-up event, Life Sciences Scale-Up Masterclass with MD of ActionCOACH Loughborough and UK Number 1 Coach, Matt Bull. This event will break down the key areas that businesses looking to scale should focus on and all attendees will receive a complimentary 121 coaching session with Matt.
10.00- 10.10 Event Welcome - Dr Nik Kotecha OBE, Chief Executive Officer, Morningside Pharmaceuticals Ltd. & Gosia Khrais, Commercial and Marketing Director, Charnwood Campus.
10.10 – 10.25 From academic curiosity to industrial drug discovery and development, Mark Chadwick - Chief Commercial Officer Charnwood Molecular. An award winning local CRO which has been providing synthetic Chemistry support for over 20 years.
10.25 – 10.40 Leadership, Entrepreneurship and Growth, Byron Dixon MBE - Founder and CEO of Micro-Fresh®, Byron Dixon started the global, anti-bacterial brand over 15 years ago. Today, the brand is used as an ‘added value’ by over 50 retailers such as
Emirates, Next and John Lewis & Partners. It now serves as the ‘go-to’ brand for innovation-conscious retailers that want to incorporate freshness into their products.
10.40 – 10.55 Expanding your business abroad, what are the challenges, Sander ten Veldhuijs - Lead Senior Innovation and Growth Specialist, Innovate UK EDGE.
10.55 – 11.10 Your Finance Options for Growth, Lewis Stringer - Senior Manager, UK Network Team, British Business Bank a government-owned business development bank dedicated to making finance markets work better for smaller businesses.
11.10 – 11.20 Developing the infrastructure framework for business growth, Dr Lucy Alexander - Head of Business Development and Senior Business Development Manager of the Innovation Centre, Charnwood Campus.
11.20 - 11.30 Scaling Up Your Business – What Next? Matt Bull - MD and Business Coach of ActionCOACH Loughborough.
11.30 – 12.00 Panel discussion Mark Chadwick, Byron Dixon, Lewis Stringer, Dr Darren Clark, CEO Medilink Midlands.
12.00 – 12.30 Light lunch and networking