2019 marks a significant year for
BioTrinity
as we move to a new c
entral London venue, etc. venues Bishopsgate, next to Liverpool Street Station, which allows us to deliver a more streamlined conference programme all on one floor.
Key features of the packed two-days includes:
- Over 2000 partnering meetings powered by partneringOne
- Company showcase presentations in our BioLaunchPad® space
- New-look and targeted exhibition area
- Panel discussions addressing 'What's Happening' in Neurodegenerative Disease, Oncology, Mental Health, Diabetes, Cell and Gene Therapy and Autoimmune Disease
- Keynotes addressing how to obtain commercial value from 'Healthy Ageing'
- Networking with up to 900 delegates from more than 450 companies, including 150 international investors and 75 representatives from global Big Pharma
For an update on the sponsors, speakers, showcasing companies and delegates please visit
www.biotrinity.com
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OBN Investment & Tax Special Interest Group (ITSIG)
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New Member of the ITSIG Group
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We delighted to announce that
Kathy Hills
has joined
ITSIG
this month. The Group
works to get the voice of OBN Members heard in the national and local political arena in an effort to create a more favourable fiscal environment for emerging, small and medium sized enterprises in the life sciences industry from UK and European Governments.
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Kathy Hills
Senior Associate
Penningtons Manches
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Kathy is a senior associate in the corporate team of Penningtons Manches, specialising in tax and share incentives
. Based in Oxford, her focus is on life sciences, technology and other high growth companies both in Oxford and further afield. Kathy advises regularly on tax efficient investments such as EIS, SEIS and VCT and provides tax structuring advice for a planned exit including advising on the availability of Entrepreneurs' Relief. Kathy leads Penningtons Manches' share incentive practice, advising on all types of share incentives including enterprise management incentive ("EMI") schemes, unapproved option schemes, company share option plans ("CSOPs"), long term incentive plans ("LTIPs"), growth shares and phantom share schemes. She also has experience drafting UK schemes which are compatible with the incentive stock option scheme ("ISO") in the US.
Kathy commented, "as a Firm we have supported OBN for a number of years and it has been a strong voice supporting the life sciences sector. I am delighted to have been invited to join OBN's Investment and Tax Special Interest Group, and to be able to contribute to its work driving changes in policy and legislation that will assist many of our life sciences clients".
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Proposal to Cap R&D Tax Credits
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During the Autumn Budget, the Government made a proposal to reintroduce a cap on the amount of tax credits repayable to a company under the 'SME scheme'. The Government has said that in order to prevent abuse, for accounting periods of companies beginning on or after 1 April 2020, the amount of credit that a loss-making claimant company can receive in any tax year will be restricted to three times the company's total PAYE and NIC liability for that year. Out of interest, the Budget note on this referred to £300M
of fraudulent R&D claims that they were aware of.
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Mike Shearan
Senior Manager
James Cowper Kreston
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There was previously such a cap, equal to just the amount of a company's PAYE and NIC payments, which was
removed in 2012.
If this cap is introduced as announced, it will particularly affect earlier stage technology companies which may not have substantial direct employment costs but subcontract portions of their activities to
third parties.
Clearly this will be of interest to many of our OBN Members, and we will continue to m
onitor this and feedback to the Government as appropriate.
If your organisation has experienced any difficulties as a result of these changes, we would welcome your feedback to strengthen our lobbying activities in this area (all examples will be anonymised). Please email: [email protected] with an overview of your experiences, we will contact you to discuss further if necessary and will certainly send a copy of any material used prior to issue.
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RSSL introduces same-day mycoplasma testing service in UK
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Reading Scientific Services Ltd (RSSL)
,
a leading provider of scientific and technical solutions to the global biopharmaceutical, pharmaceutical, and biopharmaceutical sectors, has introduced the United Kingdom's first same-day mycoplasma testing service for manufacturers of biologic medicines.
Traditionally, the testing required to confirm biologics are free from mycoplasma, a genus of small, hard-to-detect bacteria that lack cell walls, took 28 days and used an agar and broth method. The European Pharmacopoeia now accepts a faster, PCR-based method but other limits on turnaround times mean manufacturers still typically need to wait two or more days to receive results.
RSSL has used its established processes for sample handling and tracking to eliminate the constraints that have kept turnaround times above 48 hours. If a manufacturer gets a sample to RSSL by 9:30am, it will receive mycoplasma testing results by 5pm.
The highly trained and professional team at RSSL use automated technology to extract DNA for testing. RSSL then performs mycoplasma tests using the leading and regulator-accepted commercial analysis kits.
RSSL has reduced the time it takes to execute this process to serve the UK's fast-growing advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs) sector. Production of ATMPs such as autologous cell and gene therapies entails taking a sample from a patient, processing it and re-administering it back into the same patient within 15 days, making speed a priority.
For more information about this article please
click here.
RSSL also organise training events, for more information please take a look at their
events calendar.
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New Member of the OBN Team
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We would like to say a huge welcome to our new member of the OBN Team, Funmi Adedeji, taking on the role
of
Business Development Assistant.
Funmi joined OBN this month and will be reporting into Lee Pratley, Head of Purchasing & Membership. Her role is to work with the Membership team to develop and implement the Membership Retention Strategy to identify and follow-up new members.
Funmi achieved a degree in Biomedical Science at Oxford Brookes University in 2014. Her work experience includes sales support roles at Penlon, Project Assistant at PSI-CRO and Senior Pharmacy Assistant - Clinical Trials, at King's College, London. She enjoys reading fantasy novels, catching up with TV and looking after her son.
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Need accommodation for BioEurope 2019?
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I
f you are attending
BioEurope
this year, 25 March - 27 March, and need to book your accommodation then please consider the hotel rates below which are kindly being offered by one of our Members,
EFR Travel.
Suggested hotels - room per night including tax:
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Welcome to our new Members!
Develops single-cell fluorescence microscopes for a new community of researchers, by removing the complications associated with instrumentation, analysis and cost.
Pioneer the development of fluid-shaping technologies to advance discovery into cell biology.
The world's first cloud-based procurement technology company providing solutions for e-invoicing, e-procurement, and e-funding.
Enable clients to drive products through development, registration, market launch and post-approval activities.
Focus on providing strategic communications to life science companies to achieve their corporate objectives.
A cancer metabolism company developing first-in-class treatments to prolong the lives of cancer patients.
Specialise in UPS backup, power distribution systems and I.T.racks, and are partnered with Tripp Lite, Vertiv, Eaton and Riello.
A biotechnology startup working on new immunotherapeutics against cancer.
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Contact
Lee Pratley
to find out how you can make huge savings on Lab and office supplies, business travel, utility bills and many more!
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and login
to view the details of
discounts
you can receive as an OBN Member to attend a wide range of events.
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Advanced Therapies and Regenerative
Medicine AIMday
Wednesday 3rd April 2019
University of Oxford
AIMdays provide a platform for your business to host a roundtable discussion with a group of academics who have a genuine interest in your business challenges.
For more information please click
here
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If you haven't already joined OBN please take a look at all the benefits of becoming an OBN Member and...
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If you have any News, Jobs or Events you would like to share with OBN Members and Contacts email
Rebecca with the details.
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