Precision medicine in Scotland

Sector and market opportunity

Companies based in Scotland can access extensive clinical data, world-leading researchers and facilities, industry partners and centres of excellence coordinated across the country.

They’ll also get direct links into NHS Scotland for real-world application – this triple helix ecosystem (clinicians, businesses and academics) will help you launch your solutions globally.

The Precision Medicine Scotland Innovation Centre has been specifically created to interact with companies and facilitate the access to and collaboration with Scottish partners. Excellent opportunities for development exist across targeted therapeutics, biomarkers, companion diagnostics, diagnostic imaging and cross-platform technologies.

Growth prospects

There is a growing demand for precision medicine technologies, solutions and treatments.

Currently, 1 in 5 drugs approved by the USA Food and Drug Administration are in precision medicine. Furthermore, the global precision medicine market across major diseases is forecast to reach £102 billion by 2025.

Location

Scotland has a well-established ecosystem for precision medicine, centred around the Scottish Government’s investment in the Precision Medicine Scotland Innovation Centre and the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital.

The combination of world-class clinical research, high-quality electronic health data, patient samples, NHS Scotland, and large cohorts of patients with chronic disease differentiates Scotland from many other countries.

Connectivity

Scotland has 5 major airports with local and international connections. Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Glasgow Prestwick and Inverness serve 150 international destinations.

There’s also excellent connectivity across the country through the 3,507km trunk road and motorway network connecting Scotland’s major cities, towns, airports and ports.

Local talent and skills

Scotland is one of the largest life sciences clusters in Europe, employing over 41,000 people.

Over 27,000 per year graduate from Scottish universities with degrees relevant to precision medicine.

Skills Development Scotland is delivering a skills investment strategy and action plan so that Scotland has enough skilled staff and a world class workforce.

Research and expertise

Scotland’s life sciences cluster offers the research infrastructure and support you need to develop your precision medicine solution and facilitates implementation into the NHS.

Its universities produce world-class research and perform well across international rankings. The quality of research from the 4 Precision Medicine Scotland Innovation Centre partner universities is higher than in other university groupings in the UK.

The Universities of Glasgow and Dundee are ranked first and second in the UK for medicine, including preclinical and clinical, with Edinburgh fifth and Aberdeen seventh.

NHS Research Scotland is funded by the Chief Scientist Office (CSO) and promotes and supports excellence in clinical and translational research. It provides access to the resources you need to successfully trial and validate your precision medicine application, for direct implementation into the NHS.

Local and national government support

The UK is investing in precision medicine, so your company can capitalise on the vital investment pouring into the sector.

The Life Sciences Vision uses the successes of the Life Sciences Industrial Strategy and sector deals, aiming to build on the scientific successes and ways of working. This ranges from looking at coronavirus (COVID-19) to tackling challenging diseases such as cancer, obesity, dementia and ageing.

The government and sector’s ambition is to drive a renaissance in UK manufacturing over the next decade. This will look to target areas in which the UK has, or could develop, a meaningful competitive advantage across precision medicine.

Locally, investment into life sciences in Scotland is a major feature of the risk capital market. Scottish Enterprise offers a range of funding, advice and grant opportunities including the Scottish Co-Investment Fund and the Scottish Venture Fund.

Success stories

REPROCELL Europe

REPROCELL Europe is headquartered at the West of Scotland Science Park in Glasgow. It’s a leading contract research services company that works with 19 out of the 20 major global pharma companies to better predict drug safety and efficacy using human fresh tissues.

It is a partner of the Precision Medicine Scotland Innovation Centre (PMS-IC) and is a member of the UK Good Laboratory Practice programme.

BioClavis

BioClavis is a Glasgow-based personalised diagnostics spinout of US based BioSpyder Technologies, located at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital.

The company provides Omics (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, or metabolomics) testing to provide pre-clinical discovery data and diagnostic tests for cost-effective care for individual patients, using its proprietary TempO-Seq platform.

Since arrival, BioClavis has proven the power of the Clinical Innovation Zone by very quickly establishing multiple high-impact collaborations with Glasgow academics and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

Fios Genomics

Fios Genomics is an Edinburgh-based bioinformatics company which provides an extensive range of data analysis services to pharma, contract research organisations and academia for drug discovery, development and applied research.

The company, located in Edinburgh’s BioQuarter, was a spin-out from Edinburgh University in 2008 and currently works with more than 100 clients across Europe and the USA.

Fios services include biomarker analysis, microarray analysis, next-generation sequencing, data mining and integration, proteomics and metabolomics analysis and agricultural genomics.