UK Bioscience Forum: Incentivize investors to hold their investment for more than 10 years

One of the main messages from the keynote speech at the UK Bioscience Forum by Paul Drayson, chief executive of Drayson Technologies and previous minister for science and innovation, was that the country needs to give incentives for investors to hold their investment for more than 10 years. The subject of funding and of making the UK a welcome and productive place for bioscience companies to do business was echoed, repeatedly, throughout the day.

The state of the bioindustry

The BioIndustry Association’s (BIA) report on the State of the Nation, presented at the conference, showed that the UK leads Europe in terms of capital raised and the pipeline of products. The UK has raised £734 million ($1.1 billion) in innovation capital in the first half of 2014, which is set to be a banner year since the first half has already surpassed the total of £483 million of innovation capital raised in 2013. The UK remains the largest bioscience cluster in Europe, developing over 450 product candidates in 2013.