Workshop on industrial collaborations and funding

Thursday 18th May 2017

Biological Sciences held its first themed workshop on industrial collaborations on Thursday 18th May. These workshops aim to inform academic staff about the advantages of working with industry and to provide an opportunity to network with industrial partners. Claire Clarkin, Associate Professor in Developmental Biology and Enterprise fellow of BioSci took on the task of organising the first themed workshop on oncology and angiogenesis. Invited speakers included Dr Christian Klein,  Head of Oncology Programs at Roche in Zurich, Switzerland, Dr Ann White, Senior Principle Scientist at UCB, Slough, and Prof Mark Cragg, Professor in Experimental Cancer Biology, Faculty of Medicine, Univeristy of Southampton. 

Christian Klein,  gave an overview of the departments at Roche (oncology, neuroscience, ophthalmology, infectious diseases, immunology/inflammation and rare diseases) and emphasized that working  with Universities is highly valued at Roche and requires scientific value, patient focus and a strong collaborative approach.

Christian used his collaboration with Mark Cragg as a good example of a successful partnership  which includes joint publications, an iCASE award, co-organising a Keystone meeting and knowledge transfer.

Professor Mark Cragg said: ”Our industrial collaboration really started around 5 years ago, and most interactions have lead to further developments. The advantages of working with industrial partners includes access to advanced technologies and large scale production, access to novel targets and drugs, and securing funding for projects that are more translational and/or  commercial than charity and research council funded projects”.

Ann White, from UCB,  provided an overview of UCB’s structure, a global pharmaceutical company based in Belgium and the UK. Academic collaborations are an important part of UCB’s strategy with  a number of ways to interact, including CASE studentships and research collaborations, but also an antibody screening service that can be accessed.

The meeting was attended by 15 academics, from PhD student to principle investigator, who pitched their research interest in the ‘who am I and why am I here‘ session. A perfect way to make the first step in building networks, which could be further developed over a poster session during the short break.

Finally Prof Brian Hayden, Associate Dean of Enterprise in FNES, and Chief Scientific Officer at Ilika, shared some useful tips on how to initiate a collaboration with industry and Prof Jessica Teeling, Director of Enterprise in Biological Sciences, presented routes to funding for Biomedical research, both internal, for example via the recently awarded MRC confidence in concept award and external sources, including research councils, EU and UK charities.

Biological Sciences and the Institute for Life Sciences (IfLS) aim to hold two themed industry workshop per year- Please get in touch (C.Clarkin@soton.ac.uk or J.Teeling@soton.ac.uk)  if you want to propose a theme.