Life Sciences Sector

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 9 January 2019.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Gordon Lindhurst Gordon Lindhurst Conservative

The life sciences sector is an area in which the reputation of Scotland and the UK spans the globe. Much of that is down to the famous sheep Dolly, which was, of course, cloned at the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin institute.

Twenty years on, the Lothian region, which I represent, goes from strength to strength in the field of life sciences. It benefits from

, among other initiatives, the

UK Government and the Scottish Government working together on the Edinburgh and south-east city region deal. Investment is brought to projects such as the Roslin institute to bring together life scientists, clinicians and data scientists to develop innovative and financially sustainable models of health and social care that improve lives.

It is not just our universities that make the Lothian region such an important place for the sector. Earlier today, I met the director of IQVIA, which is Scotland’s biggest life sciences employer. It is a global data human sciences company with a laboratory in Livingston that processes 4 million biological samples from clinical trials across the world each year. Investment at that laboratory will also allow pharmaceutical and biotech companies from around the world to understand better how genes affect people’s health and risk of disease so that personalised medicines can be created. The company decided to base some operations in Livingston because of the rich life sciences ecosystem that exists here.

Indeed, the UK health and life sciences sector is, as we have heard, the fastest growing in Europe. It is important that Governments work together across the UK to maintain and grow that reputation as well as attract inward investment from across the world.

Scotland can benefit from initiatives such as the life sciences sector deals as part of the industrial strategy, which are fundamental to supporting the sector and boosting R and D funding to £12.5 billion by 2021-22, as well as funding from the industrial strategy challenge fund and Scottish Enterprise that will be used for one of the new UK medicines manufacturing innovation centres to be based in Renfrewshire.