On Tuesday at 10 Downing Street, the Northern Health Science Alliance (NHSA) was party to the launch of the Industrial Strategy for Life Sciences Sector Deal. This saw the Secretary of State for Business Greg Clark and the Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Hunt come together with Sir John Bell and industry leaders to launch the first wave of the Industrial Strategy Life Science sector deals.

The ‘deals’ are a partnership between the life science sector that encompasses a breadth of SME and large corporate companies, from pharmaceutical companies such as AstraZeneca and Glaxo Smith Klein, medical technology companies such as Phillips, digital health companies such as Google’s Deep Mind, the UK’s research councils. Also including the third sector of medial charities, leading universities and NHS hospitals and the full breadth of the supply chain that services this £64bn industry.

The North is home to over 1,000 life science companies employing over 40,000 people contributing more than £10bn to the UK economy annually. Including hospitals and universities around £17bn is being delivered by over 570, 000 staff. Our Northern Powerhouse is a thriving hot-bed of health innovation and research and health innovation capabilities are found in all of the North’s city regions .

This is why the Northern Health Science Alliance has been working so hard over the last year, through the creation of the Life Science Strategy Board, the Industrial Strategy White Paper, and now through the sector deals, to make sure the North remains at the front of the queue.

As part of the sector deal announcement Government committed the next phase of the sector deal will be an opportunity to further identify and develop regional approaches to the implementation of the Life Sciences Industrial Strategy, identifying a partnership with the NHSA, along with local and global industry to support the growth of the North’s life science and health innovation economy.

The NHSA will be making sure the entire North, is positioned to make the most of this opportunity and that its life science and health innovation sector engages with Government to enable the right investments to be made in the right place to support growth of this vital industry.