Other

Invitation: UK Parties with an interest in the New Zealand Health/Med, Animal Vaccines, and Functional Foods sectors

Mission

These days, New Zealand is just humming with innovation, and several research groups, university spin-outs and high-Technology companies are actively engaged in the biopharma space. The British High Commission and UKTI in New Zealand, are assembling a UK group to visit NZ at the end of March/early April 2008 to discuss collaborations which show a high potential for moving through to IP discovery and commercial exploitation within a reasonable timeframe.

The fields of interest for the mission are: wound care, bone regeneration, medical devices, and animal vaccines. The visit to New Zealand is timed to allow attendance at the NZBio annual conference in Auckland from March 31 to April 2. (www.nzbio.org.nz/conference2008/files/home.asp). The conference organisers are planning to host a dedicated "NZ-UK Collaborative Opportunities" workshop during the programme. In addition, the British High Commission will host a follow-up day on April 3 in Auckland to let researchers and commercial developers explore the potential for specific collaborations. Lord Digby Jones, UK Minister for Trade and Investment, plans to be in New Zealand at the time, and hopes to meet participants in the evening.

Funding

While there is no explicit funding available for these visits, partial assistance may be available for researchers who would not otherwise be able to participate. Contact Steve.Thompson@fco.gov.uk if you are a mainly research organisation, or Paul.Tuckley@fco.gov.uk if your interests are mainly commercial, and let them know if you wish to attend, if there are particular discussions that you would like to see set up, or if you wish to make a link with a particular organisation. They can e-mail you a summary of more than 100 NZ organisations active in the health/medical field.

Please click here to view the flyer.

For further information please contact Mike Gill of Medilink in Manchester who is acting as a UK co-ordinator for the mission.

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UKTI Announces new Business Group LifeSciences Sector Champion

Jon Mowles has been appointed the new LifeSciences Sector Champion, replacing Margaret Parton/Kieran Rooney. He will be working predominantly with the Inward Investment team led by Martin Phelan.

UK Trade & Investment is the Government organisation that helps UK-based companies succeed in international markets. They assist overseas companies to bring high quality investment to the UK’s vibrant economy.

More about the strategy www.marketinglifescience.co.uk