London’s strength in cross-sector “convergence” and a new push to support the NHS to be a more effective buyer of innovation will headline Laura Citron’s message to the Harley Street Health District conference.
The capital’s distinct advantage in “convergence” – applying ideas from one sector to another – will be a central theme of a London innovation leader’s message to the Harley Street Health District biennial conference, alongside a renewed focus on how the NHS and industry can work together to adopt innovation at scale.
Speaking to the Digest ahead of the October conference, she said she expects to focus on “reasons to be optimistic about life sciences in London” and to set out “what are our key strengths, and why they matter now more than ever, and what are we doing to be competitive.”
“From a frontier research innovation perspective, London is particularly strong at convergence, by which I mean being able to apply ideas and innovation from one sector to another,” she said.
“London is really good at artificial intelligence and also really good at life sciences, and we’ve been able to bring those ideas together,” she added.
Ms Citron said she will spotlight the parallel with fintech, where London’s financial services and technology strengths have combined to create a global leading position, and how similar crossovers are now emerging in areas such as drug discovery, cybersecurity, green technologies, bioengineering and advanced robotics – and highlight how the capital’s leading universities are leaning into this approach.
“Both Imperial and UCL have research strategies that are built around the idea of convergence and interdisciplinarity,” she said.
Ms Citron also plans to highlight emerging work that brings together the Harley Street Health District, the NHS and academic partners around a major, high-burden disease area, using it as a test case for new ways of working and “how we take innovation that exists and really adopt it at scale.”
The way the NHS buys and implements innovation is central to London’s future as a life sciences hub, she said. “The NHS needs to be better at buying innovation so that it can improve patient outcomes and treat people for less money,” she said. “They spend 26 billion pounds a year in London. If they can be buying from London innovators and London entrepreneurs, that is a huge source of demand.”
While London is often ranked the third or fourth most significant life sciences hub globally, Ms Citron will highlight that in artificial intelligence applied to life sciences “there was more venture capital invested … in London than anywhere else in the world” in the first half of this year.
