Enterprise and Internationalisation report by Professor John Holloway
We showcased our ever-closer links with industry at a conference in April organised by the Health and Pharma University-Industry Sector Team (UIST). During the day, we explained how companies can benefit from working with us and how academics can better engage with external organisations. Among the talks, Dr Sandrine Williame-Morawek spoke about her collaboration with the Hampshire SME Wickham Laboratories on cellular toxicity and was joined by Dr Chris Bishop from the company. Dr John Easton from IBM described the challenges of dealing with ‘big data’ in pharmaceutical research using computing and analytical technologies. Dean of Medicine, Professor Iain Cameron summed up the day and spoke about the importance of partnerships between industry and academia in translational research. Many of the speakers were videoed during the day and their interviews can be seen
online
.
In May, we hosted a workshop on CASE studentships. Dr Nick Evans highlighted why academics should investigate the benefits of working closely with industry alongside PhD students in this scheme.
We must also congratulate the Faculty of Medicine spinout company, Synairgen, on striking a deal worth up to $232 million (137.86 million pounds) in milestone payments for the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to acquire rights to their drug SNG001 for treating respiratory tract viral infections in patients with severe asthma that is based on research carried out by Professor Donna Davies (a Synairgen Co-Founder) and colleagues at the University of Southampton and Imperial College London.
Postgraduate researcher Dr Philip Alexander won the award for best presenter at the Oxbridge Biotech Roundtable (OBR) Consulting Competition in March.
He was in a team of Southampton students with Joanna Gould from Medicine and James Beggs and Matthew Rodrigues from Life Sciences. Although they didn’t win, they were highly commended for their analysis on the best strategy for a large pharmaceutical company investing in novel diabetes drugs.
A delegation from Xiamen University visited the Faculty in March as part of our collaboration that already welcomes a number of PhD students from China to spend part of their time training at Southampton. We will be exploring future opportunities with them in years to come.
Dr Sunhea Choi and Trevor Pickup from Southampton joined with Professor Youssef Aboussaleh, the University of Ibn Tofail, Morocco to organise a bilateral workshop on Scaling Up Nutrition in Rabat in February. This was thanks to a British Council programme to encourage young researchers to engage in international collaborations.
