Start-up success at BioMed Academy

Talk with Paul Clewlow

Nottingham Business School (NBS) has hosted a prestigious five-day event nurturing emerging start-ups in the health-tech and pharma industries.

The BioMed Academy is a partnership between Nottingham Business School, part of Nottingham Trent University (NTU), the British Embassy in Warsaw and the Polish Development Fund.

The 17 Polish start-ups had already benefited from a week of workshops and mentoring in Poland before arriving in Nottingham for week two of the Academy.

Senior lecturer in Marketing at NBS, Dr Margaret Grzegorczyk led the British leg of the event, bringing together a programme of mentors and experts to develop the delegates’ skills ready for a live-pitching session on Friday afternoon.

The programme included sessions on developing a lean start-up, how to pitch to investors, communications in the commercialisation process and working with the NHS. The start-ups also gained an understanding of business model design, strategic planning and an introduction to the British pharmaceutical industry.

Nottingham’s biomedical incubators MediCity and BioCity contributed to the event through guest speakers, mentors and tours of their facilities.

Margaret Grzegorczyk commented: “Our delegates benefited from the wealth of expertise in Nottingham, not just from NBS, but from across our thriving life sciences and pharma sector. The professional mentors supported the delegates to get the most out of the week, which concluded with an intense pitching session at the end of the week.”

The programme concludes later this year with a further round of inputin Warsaw and the presentation of the company’s final pitches for funding to Polish and British investors.

Such was the success of the Nottingham BioMed Academy that some of the start-ups have already attracted investors’ attention and have been invited to join the BioCity Accelerator programme.