A recent panel discussion between biotech industry leaders and previous winners of the Millennium Technology Prize has revealed intriguing insights into the European biotech landscape and offered sage advice for anyone working in, or looking to establish, a biotech start-up.

The Millennium Technology Prize, Finland’s answer to the Nobel Prizes, is a €1 million prize awarded to those who have driven technological innovations that “promote the well-being of people and the planet.” But more than that, the prize, awarded by the Technology Academy Finland (TAF; Helsinki, Finland), aims “not only to recognize impact, but also to create it,” according to the prize’s CEO Maija Liiri. In her introduction, Maija highlighted the recent partnership between the prize and Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) as the first of many established in order to globalize the prize, with the aim of bringing panels and events to universities around the world, with the UK selected as their next target for a university partnership.





The TAF recently hosted a panel discussion at the residence of the Finnish Ambassador to the UK with the winners of the 2020 prize: David Klenerman and Shankar Balasubramanian (both University of Cambridge, UK). The pair are responsible for the development of sequencing by synthesis, which ushered in a new era of next-generation sequencing responsible for the dramatic acceleration of DNA sequencing and the corresponding reduction in associated costs. They were joined on the panel by two leaders of European health and biotechnology companies: Charles Alessi, Chief Clinical Officer at Nightingale Health (Helsinki, Finland), and Becky Warnes, Public Affairs and NHS Liaison Manager for Orion Pharma (Espoo, Finland), working in their recently established R&D; site in Cambridge, UK.

During his brief introduction, the Finnish Ambassador to the UK, Teemu Turunen, touched on a key point that was to be revisited throughout the panel. The UK, Finland and, on a wider

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