Chamber and committees

On your case study, which you mentioned earlier, you said that there is a need for a public-private fund that backs life sciences and innovation ideas. Can you say more about that?

How do we ensure that, once we get out of the research and development phase, manufacturing jobs are retained in Scotland? Until fairly recently, my son worked in life sciences. An American investor was involved in that company, but despite the fact that all the R and D was done in Scotland, the manufacturing plant of that American investor was in Europe.

No—there are a number of factors.

I have another couple of questions. We talked about the golden triangle of Oxford, Cambridge and London, but Scotland has the highest proportion of higher education students enrolled in science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects, and a higher proportion of the Scottish population have completed higher education or have a degree. When we have a highly educated population and a lot of students in STEM subjects, what is the difficulty in retaining jobs here?

Has Brexit made that harder? Europe is a market of 550 million people. Is it harder for us to trade with it because of what has happened over recent years?

Good morning. We have already touched on spin-offs; I want to understand the position a bit better. Adam McGeoch, as you are the author of the report, I come to you first.

In the report, you say that

“scale-up is a barrier to success and Scotland loses spin-outs and talent to England.”

However, in the same report, you say that such businesses

“supported by knowledge exchange from world renowned universities and extensive government support ... have made Scotland one of the largest life sciences clusters in Europe, made up of over 770 enterprises.”

You then go on to say that

“The number of businesses manufacturing pharmaceuticals has increased by 40% since 2010.”

I had a look back at your report on “The economic contribution of the pharmaceutical sector in Scotland” from 2017, which has a helpful table showing employment from 2009. In 2009, total pharmaceutical employment in Scotland was 2,200. In your current report, the figure for the wider pharmaceuticals sector is 5,900.

I am trying to understand, therefore, where the difficulty with spin-offs that has been referred to lies.

I lifted that off its accounts on Companies House. That was all the information that I had.

The figures that I lifted were from its latest published accounts on Companies House. I realise that there is a lag, but they suggest that, similarly to Exscientia, the improvement in its financial position has been recent. Back in 2020, if I am reading it correctly—again, this is from Companies House—Exscientia had only 65 employees. It was only in 2021-22 that we saw substantial growth, which it did not have when it was created back in 2012.

With the timing differences.

I have no relevant interests to declare.