Bio19 World Insight June 2019

An independent supplement by world insight worldinsight.co.uk | Insight | 5
Glasgow City Region, the second-largest life science cluster in the United Kingdom with more than 230 companies, is among those which has seen the future in precision medicine
Glasgow nucleus of unique ‘triple
helix’ precision medicine project
Scotland is positioning
itself at the forefront
of precision medicine,
the implementation of
which could generate
estimated health
savings of £70bn
The global IMPORTANCE
of precision medicine (PM)
cannot be downplayed in terms
of its potential impact, not
only on health, but in terms of
the economic prosperity it can
offer both the companies and regions
who will be at the forefront of the
technologies that will underpin it.
It was estimated the global PM
market value in 2016 was $43 billion
and this figure is projected to rise to
around $134bn by 2025. Driven by
demand for cost savings on drugs
that are currently being wasted by
the fact that they don’t work in mass
dispensation, here then is the life
science market that offers the top
prize.
In Scotland alone, analysis by
the University of Glasgow Health
Economics and Health Technology
Assessment team suggests that over
a 50-year period, a 10% reduction
in the burden of five key disease
types, including age-related ills and
cancer, through the
implementation of
PM, would generate
cumulative health
savings in Scotland
of around £70bn.
That’s one
reason why
Glasgow
Dr Carol
Clugston
of Glasgow
University
City Region, the second-largest life
science cluster in the UK with more
than 230 companies, is among those
which has clearly seen the future in
PM – sometimes known as stratified
or personalized medicine – and is now
seeking to lead the field by making
a unique contribution in drawing
complementary strengths together in
a way that is not happening in the rest
of the world.
It is an ethos known as the “triple
helix”, bringing together the NHS,
university academics and companies
working in PM seamlessly as
bedfellows for the first time.
Spearheaded by Professor Dame
Anna Dominiczak and Dr Carol
Clugston of the University of
Glasgow, the project seeks to ensure
the city region – and Scotland as
a whole – is the go-to place for
international companies who can
contribute to the ongoing research
into PM in this highly competitive
global sector.
“In the future, precision medicine
will simply become medicine – and
A diagnosis of pancreatic cancer
is one of the most devastating
anyone can receive. Survival
rates are bleak and showing few
signs of improvement – fewer
than three in every 100 people
diagnosed with the disease can
expect to be alive after five
years.
The scale of the challenge
facing cancer scientists may
seem almost insurmountable, but
the team at Glasgow is meeting
it head on.
Led by Andrew Biankin, Regius
Professor of Surgery and Director
of the Wolfson Wohl Cancer
Research Centre (who hails from
Australia but brought his whole
team to Glasgow because he
we intend to make sure that happens,”
insists Dr Clugston.
And the Glasgow City Region
message is resonating around the
global life science community,
particularly in the United States.
That’s why BioSpyder Technologies,
the Californian molecular profiling
company, invested more than $12.5m
to create a new subsidiary, BioClavis,
in Glasgow. The personalized
diagnostics spin-out was supported
with a $5.7m grant from Scottish
Enterprise, creating 43 jobs initially.
BioSpyder considered a range
of locations around Europe (in the
UK, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland,
Netherlands), but soon realized the
$1bn QEUH campus in Glasgow’s
Govan area was the best location for
setting up BioClavis.
Naturally, the US company looked
at the Golden Triangle of life sciences
in the UK – Cambridge, Oxford
and London – but like many other
investors ruled it out not because
of lower office cost, but because of
recruiting technicians who could
thought it offered more scope), it
is making significant advances.
Professor Biankin’s flagship
initiative Precision-Panc uses a
precision medicine approach to
find and understand molecular
differences between each
patient’s specific form of
pancreatic cancer in order to
target them with all and only
the right treatments for their
individual tumor.
And with more than
$12.5 million of NHS funding,
in excess of $10m of which
was allocated to Glasgow,
groundbreaking new trials have
now begun. These are recruiting
pancreatic cancer patients as
soon after their diagnosis as
not afford to live there. The first key
attractor in Glasgow was the scale and
quality of clinical data and samples
they would be able to access. QEUH
has one of the largest pathology
laboratories in the UK and Europe,
and a large biorepository, which is
networked to others across Scotland.
The company also saw the
networking infrastructure as a real
asset of Glasgow, specifically the
integration of industry, academics and
clinicians at the Clinical Innovation
Zone (CIZ).
And home in the CIZ means
BioClavis and other PM companies
find themselves at the heart of the
hospital. Here everyone literally
comes together with PM researchers
and developers rubbing shoulders with
clinicians, so offering contacts for a
unique entry into the NHS market that
has proved difficult, if not impossible,
to access in the past.
Nor did BioSpyder overlook that
the university hospital campus is also
home to the University of Glasgow’s
dedicated centre for PM and imaging
Precision-Panc shining new light on pancreatic cancer
possible in order to undergo
tumor biopsies and apply the
targeted treatment most likely to
be able to help their condition,
whether that is innovative new
drugs, surgery, or both.
There are several important
flagship research projects
and initiatives that illustrate
the breadth and depth of
Scotland’s PM capabilities
including the SMS-IC’s multiple
exemplar projects, IMIDBio-UK
project (Rheumatoid Arthritis),
Scottish Genomes Partnership
(genome sequencing), SMS-IC
participation in AstraZeneca’s
Global Genomics Initiative and
the Innovate UK NASH Data
Commons project.
and so offers access to a goldmine of
“cradle to the grave” electronic patient
records, clinical trial infrastructure,
partner identification, and logistical
and financial support.
Or that the Stratified Medicine
Scotland Innovation Centre is located
in the Clinical Innovation Zone. A
pan-Scottish collaboration, funded
by the Scottish Funding Council and
industry, its role is to support industry
to work with the NHS and academics
to drive PM.
Each of the companies in the CIZ
have also been handpicked for their
interest in collaboration, not just
with the NHS and their neighbors,
but further afield, as the university
hospital is the heart of a burgeoning
Scotland bioscience corridor.
BioClavis for one has taken full
advantage of the NHS links offered
by the CIZ and has used this as a
springboard for collaboration, not
only in the region, but also throughout
Scotland and the rest of the UK.
Such has been the success of the
Clinical Innovation Zone that it won
a UK Science Park Association award
this year in the “location setting the
pace” category
The plan now is to develop a
new linked campus adjacent to the
hospital – the Clyde Waterfront
Innovation Campus – which, along
with other innovation facilities such as
a nanofabrication centre for quantum
technology, will provide a “Living
Lab” for PM.
The Living Lab project will
strengthen Glasgow’s ecosystem by
establishing new innovation pathways
in a real-world clinical setting and a
dedicated Health Innovation Hub that
offers grow-on space and enabling
“soft” infrastructures.
“We have a choice in Scotland.
Are we going to be at the forefront of
precision medicine, or are we going
to be buying these technologies from
other countries?” asks Dr Clugston.
“Quite honestly, we want to be the
former.”