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The Life Sciences Catalyst

Developed through our industry insights and deep relationships across the local and global ecosystem, the Deloitte Life Sciences Catalyst exists to solve the business challenges that keep life sciences leaders and innovators up at night.

Via a virtual and in person events programme, a database of whitepapers and a business surgery programme, the Life Sciences Catalyst facilitates connections between people, businesses and investors to support companies, regardless of their evolutionary stage.

Based in the heart of Cambridge, but working virtually, we are ready to help you harness the business opportunities ahead.

In May 2024 we opened the Life Sciences Catalyst Business Lounge.

In an era where collaboration fosters innovation we are thrilled to announce the launch of our new Life Sciences Catalyst Business Lounge within Deloitte Cambridge. The lounge offers access to three different zones: the touch-down zone, the collaboration zone and the executive zone. Membership includes access to all three zones, hot and cold beverages and use of our state of the art digital collaboration capabilities. 

Please register your interest to become a member of the business lounge by scanning the QR code here or replying to ukcambridgebusinesslounge@deloitte.co.uk. We'll send you full information.

Join the Catalyst

The Life Sciences Catalyst offers a collaborative platform for growing Biotech and Medtech companies, Pharmaceutical companies, Technology companies and prospective investors to come together to tackle the big challenges facing us all. In addition to regular virtual events, the Life Sciences Catalyst will provide access to a range of other benefits.

Webinars, events and webcasts

 

To connect with the Life Sciences Catalyst community and hear about relevant industry news, please join our LinkedIn group.

On 5 October, we hosted a webinar on digitisation. We were joined by Amazon Web Services, Healthcare and Life Sciences Leader, Himanshu Jain. Scientific data is at the core of every Life Sciences company and organisation. A key challenge many face is getting this valuable data out of the lab and into the decision making processes.

In this webinar we reviewed the common challenges facing labs, how digital solutions can overcome those challenges and discuss how lab digitisation can accelerate your product on its journey from bench to patient.

Watch now

How emerging biotechs are exploring the opportunities of out-licensing?

Increasingly, emerging biotech companies enter Europe through partnerships and out-licencing deals due to the lower risk, less cost, and increased speed to market – all of which enable a successful first launch. However, for the right companies, go-alone remains attractive to generate the highest returns.

 

Following our latest report, hear from Hanno Ronte, Emma Dabbs and Rob Finn discussing the latest trends, choices, and tradeoffs to consider.

 

View our webcast here

The go-to-market strategies deployed by emerging biotechs to launch their first products into Europe have changed in the last two years. Instead of building their own infrastructure, emerging biotechs are primarily commercialising their products through out-licencing agreements.

 

View our latest insight here

This webinar explored:

  • What are the business model considerations for biotech and pharma tech?
  • How do the different business models generate revenue?
  • What are the measurable risks to assess for valuing a platform based business?
  • What are the key valuation considerations for biotech and pharma tech?

 

Watch now

In recent years, companies operating in the Life Sciences and Healthcare (LSHC) sector are more and more participating in open innovation to overcome various R&D and commercial challenges. The concept of open innovation involves sourcing new technologies, skills, and knowledge from third parties versus adopting more traditional or closed in-house development models. Overall, biopharma assets sourced via open innovation approaches are currently demonstrating a higher probability of later-phase clinical success compared to those from closed model product development. For large pharma companies this is leading to more cost and time effective product development and is shortening the time to market as well as providing wider access to talent, new technologies, broader geographies, and different therapeutic areas. For smaller pharma and biotech companies, open innovation is leading to increased partnerships and out-licensing opportunities, but this is not without challenges. To help smaller LSHC companies better navigate open innovation, Deloitte’s IP Advisory team has identified key areas to address to ensure more successful outcomes including when to seek a partner, identifying the right partner, preparing materials, and deal negotiations skills.

Read here

On Thursday 10 November, we hosted a round table discussion webinar exploring the fund raising experiences for female founders and female business leaders, the important role of IP rights, and current programs designed to help with both. The panellists discussed the current climate for female led businesses and their fundraising experiences and shared lessons they have learnt. The Deloitte IP team provided background on the benefits of owning IP and having an IP strategy/story when seeking funding and what barriers to entry female innovators tend to face.

The panel shared current government programs dedicated to helping address access to funding and IP protection support to women innovators. In addition, we were joined by Sarah King who is the CEO and founder of Radikl who is dedicated to helping raise funds for female led businesses and she shared her vision for helping women founders thrive.

Listen here

Thank you to everyone that joined us on the 29 September 2022. In a post pandemic environment organisations across all sectors are redefining the role of the workplace, conversely employees as consumers of space are re-assessing what they want from the workplace. The life sciences sector is no exception, with vast and often complex real estate portfolios, organisations are facing a challenge in how they create a fit for purpose environment for their employees that can effectively deliver value against business and employee requirements. Hear from the experience of our client and practitioner panel on how global life sciences organisations are battling this challenge and the steps they are taking to create a workplace for the future. You can re watch this webinar below.

Listen here!

In this webcast we welcome Glafkos Tombolis and Jeremy Harris talking about key legal issues in health technology, use of data and the impact of the UK’s new national security legislation on healthcare M&A involving AI and synthetic biology.

Listen again!

On Wednesday 20 July we were joined by an expert panel talking about how AI, Automation and Technology impacts clinicians all day, in all aspects of their lives, from AI to review diagnostics through to automation of basic admin tasks. Thanks to everyone who joined this month’s Life Sciences Catalyst webinar and our guest panellists who gave their insights into how to manage these impacts, drive and shape the technologies and how the clinical workforce needs to adapt to meet these needs going forward.

Listen here

19 May at 4pm
Innovating with the NHS can be hard. Such a large organisation, with significant financial and operational constraints can seem difficult to engage with.

Do we talk to clinicians, commissioners, finance directors or in reality it is all of these teams? Do we focus nationally, locally or perhaps both? What innovation support is available to SMEs and how can we access that support?

Please listen again to our webinar as we bring together a community who have been successful in innovating.

Listen again!

31 March 2022 at 10.00am
This webinar looked at how to run an effective ERP selection and implementation process. Insights were shared around the current ERP market trends and practical considerations.

Listen again!

Join Life Sciences Catalyst Lead, Fran Cousins, guests, Graeme Tunbridge and John Brennan and Deloitte UK MedTech Practice Lead, Andy Flockhart discuss MedTech Regulatory trends, key considersations for life sciences companies with products in development, Sustainability and ESC and more!

Listen again!

Listen again to Life Sciences Catalyst team on 20 October at 13:30 BST.

Cell and gene therapies have the potential to revolutionise medical care, by eliminating the underlying cause of genetic and acquired diseases. It is one of the most exciting biopharma segments with relatively recent ground-breaking scientific advances driving rapid growth, and with staggering predictions for the future success of the industry. Yet, the wider economics of delivering next gen therapies - including payment models and affordability – are highly debated and not well understood.

As well as industry trends and future expectations, the team discussed how to navigate market access and reimbursement processes and the role of innovative contracting; considerations for the delivery of cell and gene therapies from a healthcare system perspective and overcoming the nuanced challenges in next gen R&D and realising a return on investment.

Listen again

30 September 2021 16.00pm - 17.00pm. BST

Life Sciences Catalyst lead partner, Fran Cousins was joined by an amazing panel of senior leaders in the industry; Dame Sue Hill, Chief Scientific Officer for England, Dr David Bentley, CSO of Illumina, Dr David Atkins, CEO of Congenica, Dr Julia Wilson, Associate Director, Wellcome Sanger Institute and Chris Cowles, Partner, Withers.  Mike Standing, Deloitte Partner was panel chair.

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Life Sciences organisations are experiencing pervasive challenges across their value chains. Watch on demand the Deloitte Life Sciences Catalyst team review the transformative ways to cognitise the life sciences value chain.

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Watch on demand as a panel of experts discusses the UK investment in the Chinese life sciences sector, including what investors are looking for, the opportunities and pitfalls for investing in China.

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Watch on demand as Deloitte experts delve into how to build resilience into your third party interactions, and manage risk whilst controlling costs.

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Watch on demand as our panel of industry leaders discuss types of intellectual property, ways to protect strategic innovations, and risks to be aware of.

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Watch on demand as our panel of industry thought leaders discuss what is ahead for the Life Sciences and Healthcare ecosystem in our predictions for 2025.

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Join our webinar, as Deloitte experts discuss the intersection of intellectual property and cash tax savings, as well as critical tax pitfalls to avoid.

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Join Deloitte, Sir Mene Pangalos, Dr Andy Richards and Dr Susan Windham-Bannister as they explore the challenges facing the UK life sciences sector today

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Join CMR Surgical as we analyse their impressive journey so far, forward strategy and the key issues facing the Medtech industry

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Our podcast explores the big issues, the emerging trends and the cutting edge innovations that are shaping the Life Sciences industry. Each month, we will connect with industry experts and leaders from the Biotech, Pharmaceutical and Medical Devices industries to discuss how key trends, explored in our research reports, are charting a new, sustainable future for the Life Sciences Industry.

Find out more here