Venture capitalists weigh in on science funding debate

I spoke at an interesting event last week organised by OneNucleus, a membership organisation which brings together international life science and healthcare companies.  The audience was packed with representatives of both large and small companies including many biotechs.  It was the day before Vince Cable’s speech and much concern about what he would or would not say.

I see today that veture capitalists – who often provide the seed investment for spin-off companies to take research ideas forward and comercialise them – have weighed into the debate.  It is significant because as you may remember Vince Cable sais he was keen to encourage more spin-offs as part of the Coalition Government’s strategy.  There is an excellent piece on their concerns running on ‘Financial News’ run out of dow jones newswire.

The relevance to charities?  As I found last week many such companies are anxious to forge alliances and partnerships with charities and patient groups as both sources of funding and patient experience that can help them make their products work better for patients.