The Scotsman hosted Scotland’s conference for the life sciences industry – one of the country’s most thriving sectors – at the EICC in Edinburgh on29 November.

Since the summer, we’ve seen the new One BioHub open in Aberdeen, construction begin on the University of Glasgow’s Health Innovation Hub, and the announcement of a world-class oligonucleotide manufacturing innovation centre in Renfrewshire.

Plus, there’s a wealth of private investment deals including 1nhaler, Cytomos, and Chemify – which alone have secured £33 million.

Alix Mackay, left, the founder and director of the Life Sciences Marketing Academy. Image: Lisa Ferguson

There is good reason for this investment – the impact the life sciences industry makes is clear. In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, the whole world saw this.

However, the context is always changing; the health systems we serve are increasingly struggling to cope, and – like every other industry – we find ourselves operating in a climate emergency.

The world needs our innovations more than ever, but it needs them delivered cleaner, quicker, and in a more sustainable way. This is why this year’s conference was dedicated to decarbonisation, digitalisation, and the capabilities we need to deliver them.

Business “as unusual”

John Arthur, director of CPI’s Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre, opened the day with insight into how operational change across the industry has well and truly begun.

The conference was told addressing carbon emissions is no longer a moral position alone, it’s now a very real commercial pressure. That’s because, by the very definition of the net-zero goals to which major industry players have committed, there is a direct implication on suppliers.

One of these organisations is the NHS itself.

NHS Scotland’s Wendy Rayner told the event that more than 60 per cent of the NHS’s carbon footprint comes from medicines and medical equipment. With a net-zero goal by 2045, the NHS will require suppliers to provide data such as the emissions, waste and end-of-product-life disposal associated with their products. As Wendy described so clearly, “it’s no longer business as usual, it’s business as unusual”.

For the life sciences industry, Astra Zeneca is both a model of sustainability best practice and – for many enterprises – a major customer.

Matt Shaughnessy heads up Astra Zeneca’s Global Sustainability Projects and provided insight into the company’s ambitious 2030 net-zero goal, including how an astounding 94 per cent of its corporate carbon footprint comes from its supply chain. Astra Zeneca has officially started selecting suppliers based on their commitment to the climate challenge.

Given that net-zero goals have started making their way through the supply chain, how do businesses start to adapt?

For such an overwhelmingly large global challenge, the first steps for companies are inspiringly straightforward.

A panel of sustainability experts – including Dr Clare Wharmby of the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute, Ian Archer of BioConnect Ireland, and Addie MacGregor from the Association of British HealthTech Industries – discussed how to start with a “booking keeping” approach; make an inventory of your assets and energy consumption and ask the same of your suppliers.

Companies carrying out lab work, should look at process options in the context of carbon-efficiency in the same way as for cost-effectiveness. For medical equipment firms, the big opportunity is to focus on the product’s end-of-life disposal.

Complex medicines need clouds and connectivity

Our industry processes are not just in question from an environmental perspective. In order to address life-changing conditions more effectively, medicines are becoming a lot more complex. So much so, our current methods of evaluating, scaling and manufacturing may not be fit for purpose.

Perhaps the best example of this is gene therapies. These treatments are so sophisticated, they have the potential to effectively “cure” a person from faulty-gene derived conditions. But, with current methods of drug development, they are predicted to come with an unviable £2m price tag.

The Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult hosted a panel of leaders in the field, including from RoslinCT and Resolution Therapeutics.

They described how they are using digitalisation and automation to create new processes to dramatically reduce time and inefficiencies, and how the data captured from this can create new value.

Astra Zeneca then hosted a masterclass with experts in digitising lab procedures otlining how they digitalise whole systems and capture meaningful data. Advice from the panel included working with others to understand where effort will bring the most value, and grasping the opportunity to improve processes as you digitalise.

Organisational leadership is critical and external collaboration is key to accessing the right capabilities.

Foundations for the future

These operational changes require new industry capabilities and Dr Claire Garden presented the findings of the inaugural Life and Chemical Sciences Skills Summit. The recent Entrepreneurial Campus Report gave useful context to the entrepreneurship session, where Graham Watson of InnoScot Health described the opportunity to foster ideas from within healthcare itself.

Two academics shared their entrepreneurial experience – Aberdeen-based Dr Soumya Palliyil, co-founder of BrigID Biologics, and Dr Ayham Alnabulsi, co-founder of multiple AI-driven biotherapeutic start-ups.

They each described two factors critical to entrepreneurial success: to engage potential customers at the earliest stage of ideation and quickly build a team – for both capabilities and moral support.

There is an inspiring twist to the sustainability challenge the industry faces. Some of the most exciting solutions are coming from within life sciences and the conference showcased three of the most successful.

Chief executive Professor Ed Craig described how his company, Carbogenics, turns the sludge of paper waste into a high-value ingredient that maximises energy production from biomass.

Ingenza’s novel biological systems are enabling cleaner, more efficient processes for multiple industries and Dr Eve Hanks’ start-up, MI:RNA, is the first firm to realise the potential of MicroRNA as a way to identify avoidable excess methane livestock emissions.

One person’s challenge is another person’s opportunity

Perhaps the most compelling observation of the day was that, even in the context of immense challenge, there is still an abundance of opportunity – to do things better, create higher standards, upskill and collaborate. To innovate and create new value.

Indeed, the opportunity to do all the things this industry is built on – but this time for the health of the planet.

- Alix Mackay is the founder and director of the Life Sciences Marketing Academy

Life Sciences: Opportunities to innovate and to lead for future of planet