New CEO at Life Sciences Hub Wales
Life Sciences Hub Wales has appointed a new CEO. With acute challenges driven by an ageing population, increasingly complex chronic diseases and the desire from patients for better access to data relating to their diagnosis and treatment, the Life Sciences Hub has embarked on a journey to address and respond to these challenges and opportunities, to support and nurture businesses, identify opportunities and work with the health and care sectors, including NHS Wales.
To fulfil this brief, Cari-Anne Quinn was appointed as CEO to lead and steer Life Sciences Hub Wales.
Ms Quinn was previously the head of life sciences and policy adviser to the Welsh Government, where she supported business to locate, evolve and thrive in Wales.
Speaking about her appointment she said: “We have a real opportunity to make a difference. Our work to inspire and enable partners from health, industry and academia to come together, collaborate and embrace innovation, is now well underway.
“I’m proud that the founder of the NHS, Aneurin Bevan, was born and raised in Wales. Fearlessly embracing systematic change, he was an original health innovator, and in calling for the establishment of the NHS stated: ‘As I see it, the undertaking to provide all people with all kinds of health care calls for something bolder than a mere adaptation.’”
On the Hubs immediate priorities Ms Quinn said: “Our first step at Life Sciences Hub Wales is to understand the health and care sector’s needs and priorities.
“That means listening to those who deliver care encompassing primarily the University Health Boards and NHS Trusts, local government and social services.
“We want to understand the challenges and get to know what already works well. Added to which, our role is to find and exploit innovative solutions from the life sciences sector that can ease the pressure on NHS staff and improve outcomes for patients.
“When we say ‘innovative solutions’, we don’t just mean groundbreaking treatments – although it can be that too. Innovation can simply be a new way of doing something, such as a new way of booking appointments or tracking medicines. Some of these things may already be in use in industry – for example, a company that manages stock in a warehouse may have a solution that could also help manage medicines. Our role is to identify those connections and to make them happen. Innovation transforms the way in which we can better achieve a step change in the health of the people in Wales”.
Ms Quinns says collaboration is central to the way they work and said they’ve already seen some collaborative successes.
“We recently secured £24m of funding, co-funded by the Welsh European Funding Office European Regional Development Fund, for Accelerate, a pioneering programme with Cardiff University, Swansea University and the University of Wales Trinity Saint David,” she explained
“Accelerate aims to speed up the translation of ideas into new technology products and services for health and care, in ways which create lasting economic value in Wales. It is a good example of what we mean by collaboration as it involves academics, businesses and people working in health and care working together to find real world solutions.
“We already have teams on the ground working on potential solutions and I am excited to see the first prototypes.”
Ms Quinn added: “Life Sciences Hub Wales is well placed to drive significant and positive change for health, care and the economy in Wales. And through our links to the health and care sector, industry and academic research we are looking forward to making a tangible and positive difference.”