More funding is needed to help grow the scale of businesses in Scotland’s life sciences sector, according to one of the first minister’s advisers.
Dr Poonam Malik, who chairs Humza Yousaf’s new deal for business group alongside Màiri McAllan, the wellbeing economy secretary, told a meeting in Aberdeen that there was a need to win a bigger share of the UK financing pot.
Malik, who is also head of investments at the University of Strathclyde and chairwoman of Microplate Dx, a medical technology company, praised the work of Scottish Enterprise to fund start-up and early-stage companies.
However, she highlighted a need to provide further help in getting firms to grow to scale.
At Wednesday’s Times & Sunday Times and Opportunity North East Scottish life sciences event she said: “Any time I sit in meetings in the Golden Triangle [Oxford, Cambridge and London] everyone is very jealous of Scottish Enterprise.
“Nobody else has that co-investment structure, nobody else has that high-growth spin-out funding or Smart grants. If we could harness the strengths that are already there and manage and maintain them then that’s the message for policymakers and government.
"There’s something there that’s working well, so we need to actually do more of it and, at the same time, increase scale-up funding.”