MedCity – Fantastic news for pharma, but how will it be implemented?
find but how will it be implemented?” src=”http://i58.tinypic.com/11kyuxj.jpg” width=”214″ height=”136″ />Last week, Boris Johnson announced the launch of MedCity, a partnership of the UK’s top scientists, life science companies, and investors across London, Cambridge and Oxford.
MedCity was set up by the Mayor and King’s Health Partners, Imperial College Academic Health Science Centre and UCL partners, with Oxford and Cambridge universities, and will be supported by a panel of experts.
The new collective aims to spur the discovery of treatments to fight a number of diseases, such as cancer, diabetes and dementia.
Within the last ten years, the employment levels within the UK life sciences sector have grown by 21%, with over 700,000 people employed in the life sciences sector in the South East.
Boris Johnson commented that the collaboration between London, Oxford and Cambridge, will “form a ‘golden triangle’ of scientific innovation” allowing the UK to “channel that intellectual pre-eminence into a positive impact on our economy.”
Within the announcement, Boris Johnson noted that MedCity is expected to generate thousands of new jobs within the life sciences sector, and to eventually “rival the financial services sector” in the UK economy.
As Europe’s leading independent pharmaceutical staffing company, the Clinical Professionals Group welcomes the launch of MedCity as fantastic news for the life sciences sector, as the industry strives to find new treatments to combat multiple diseases.
However, as of yet there has been no announcement regarding how MedCity will be implemented, and how the project will be staffed. With the big increase in new jobs expected, the success of MedCity will be heavily dependent on how the recruitment for these new jobs is managed, and the level of training and support that is provided to the new employees after they have been recruited.
Yvette Cleland, Managing Director of The Clinical Professionals Group commented: “This is an outstanding initiative, however, unless the MedCity Board collaborates closely with the UK Life Sciences staffing industry, universities and training institutes these newly created positions will not be filled due to a vast lack in skilled labour and this exceptional opportunity for the UK Life Sciences industry will fail at the first hurdle.”
The initial £4 million of funding for MedCity will be financed by the Higher Education Funding Council and City Hall, allowing the promotion of MedCity as a leading hub for the life sciences sector globally, allowing it to compete with the science hubs of Boston, Singapore and Shanghai.