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About the Office for Life Sciences

The Office for Life Sciences (OLS) was created on 27th January 2009 and comprises officials from BIS, Department of Health and the Treasury.

The Office’s work is focussed on taking swift action to improve the UK operating environment for the pharmaceutical, medical biotechnology, and medical technology sectors.

The Office worked closely with the Life Sciences industry to identify priorities and actions in the short, medium and longer term. These were published in the Life Sciences Blueprint in July 2009. The priorities and actions covered the following areas:

  • Access to the NHS, the largest UK customer for the industry – including encouraging the NHS to more systematically adopt innovative medicines and technologies;
  • Access to finance;
  • Incentives for companies to invest in innovative activity and locate in the UK;
  • Skills – need for graduates with relevant skills and knowledge to work in the industry; and
  • Improved collaboration across industry, academia, and the NHS, particularly in the area of translational medicine to drive clinical benefit from innovative research.

Progress against these actions was reported in Life Sciences 2010, which was published in January 2010.