In conversation with Dr Geoff Davison, Chief Executive of Bionow and organiser of the BioFocus Conference

The North East LEP is proud to sponsor the BioFocus Conference, which takes place at the County Hotel in Newcastle on Tuesday 3 July 2018.

Welcome to my BioFocus Conference blog. The countdown to this year’s BioFocus Conference begins now and the Bionow team look forward to welcoming you to your conference on the 3 July at the County Hotel in Newcastle.

Over the coming weeks I will be updating you on this year’s BioFocus Conference, as speakers are announced and the programme takes shape. What can you expect this year? As always, this is a Conference to showcase and promote the Life Sciences sector of the North East, an opportunity for you to make those connections that help move your business forward, listen to the expertise and experience of interesting speakers – all that will happen this year.

However, things are changing, there is the emerging Newcastle Laboratories which is now challenging St James’ Park on the City Centre’s Western Skyline. There is a rapidly developing and vibrant biotech cluster in the North East, increasing interaction between different parts of the life sciences sectors. NETPark, the universities, the NHS and other institutions all make this part of the country particularly exciting, and that is going to be reflected in the conference.

This dynamic environment brings me to North East Local Enterprise Partnership, who I thank for kindly sponsoring the event. The North East LEP is a key actor and plays a major role in the development of our sector in this region. This is reflected in the theme of promoting regional excellence. There are a lot of things that the North East do very well, we see it all around us in the great businesses, universities and research that this region is renowned for. Let’s tell people about this, BioFocus is an opportunity to champion this regional excellence.

Finally, the venue is fantastic. It is the County Hotel, directly opposite Central Station in Newcastle, so there is zero chance you will get lost on the way! We have hired an entire floor of the hotel, complete with two stylish, spacious conference rooms. Exhibition space is now available and the floor plan lends itself to lots of interaction between delegates, exhibitors and speakers. In short, it is a great venue for this event.

I’ll be back with further updates soon, and I look forward to meeting you on the 3 July.

All the best
Geoff