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Back to blogPositive Government Intervention
The US Government recently announced a series of measures it will implement in 2012 under the headline of a ‘Bioeconomy Blueprint’designed to “harness biological research innovations to address national challenges in health, food energy and the environment”. The initiative will apparently include changes in regulatory policy to facilitate the translation of research to commercialisation, plans for workforce development and new translational science public-private partnerships. These initiatives go hand-in-hand with the recent NIH/FDA patent initiative for start up companies.
The US leads the way in life sciences research and life sciences investment. Small companies already have access to significant levels of R&D funding from the NIH, FDA and state governments to drive innovation and product development and now it appears that innovative businesses are going to receive further assistance.
In the UK successive governments over the last 20 years have talked about the importance of the knowledge based economy as a means of kick starting economic development and growth. There have been arguable successes such as the introduction of R&D tax credits and entrepreneur tax relief but direct, financial assistance to R&D based businesses is limited unless it happens to be in regions highlighted as needing economic development. We are all aware of the debt mountain that we need to demolish but we also know that business growth (and therefore government investment) can play a vital role in leading us out of the current economic crisis. The life sciences industry can play a part in – clearly recognised by the US government. If we are to better utilise our knowledge economy we too, in the UK, need to corral government support and direction to accelerate the translation of our strong academic research base into employment generating businesses.