Academia, business and the health service must work together more closely if Scotland’s public health service is to reach the gold standard, a Dundee conference has been told.
Delegates at the annual international conference of city-based life sciences group BioDundee heard that cooperation and commercialisation continued to be crucial to success in improving treatment.
But barriers must continue to be broken down to ensure a winning result for patients and innovative biotechnology companies.
Campbell Grant, founder and chief executive of Isle of Skye-based medical technology firm Sitekit, said Scotland had all the ingredients required to ape the podium-topping performance of one of the nation’s greatest sporting heroes.
“We’re great at competing at sport but we’ve got to realise that business is like sport too it’s a global race,” Mr Grant said.
“What we’re trying to do with the new generation of stratified medicine is to compete in that race, and it’s one where Scotland has really got a chance to be like Allan Wells!
“It’s not just the academics, but it has got to be business and the public sector the customer who all work together. If we work together we can move fast.”
Sitekit, which has 45 staff across four offices and already works with around 80 NHS customers, hopes to develop a system to allow patients to use tablets and smartphones to view records, send images and have remote video consultations.
Alongside partners on the Technology Strategy Board-supported dallas assisted lifestyles scheme, the company is already piloting an electronic record of new-born baby inoculations and records in Liverpool.
Mr Grant, who hailed the networking benefits of attending the BioDundee event, contrasted the position in Scotland’s healthcare system with that in Estonia. Medical records in the former Eastern Bloc nation are entirely computerised, while screeds of paper are still used on a daily basis by the NHS.
The conference which also featured sessions from Dundee University’s Mike Ferguson, Health Secretary Alex Neil and Touch Bionics chief executive Ian Stevens is just the latest event to be held as part of a drive to maximise the business and economic benefits of a year packed with events including the Commonwealth Games, Ryder Cup and Year of Homecoming.
It formed the second in a series of global excellence events sponsored by the Scottish Cities Alliance, and designed to showcase the country’s key growth sectors and cities.
Inverness will host the marine renewable sector in September, with Stirling reflecting on tourism early next year, and Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen following.
The 14th annual instalment of BioDundee, attended by around 140 delegates, is focused on assisted living, wellbeing and stratified medicine. It continues today with consideration of the vexed question of attracting development finance.
Finance Secretary John Swinney and Paralympic sprinter Richard Whitehead were expected to join master of ceremonies, broadcaster and former rugby international John Beattie at the conference’s gala dinner at the West Park Conference Centre last night.