TSB head of healthcare Zahid Latif

Zahid Latif appears to be enjoying life as his team expands and his department gets a bigger share of the TSB’s annual budget of £390m. With next week marking five years at the government innovation agency, the former pharmacist reveals that this is the longest he has stayed in any job and almost seems surprised at his own commitment.

We’re on the TSB-backed ‘Future Health Mission’ with 20 of the UK’s most promising medical technology companies as they hope to secure investment from Boston’s wealthy venture capitalists, build relationships with other companies in their respective fields, and learn the crucial dos and don’ts for healthcare start ups looking to break into the USA.

During the trip the carefully selected companies network with other healthcare start-ups, including many that have successfully spun out of New England’s prestigious universities such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard, and Boston University. Intelligent young American entrepreneurs engaged with members of the slightly older British party and infected them with their contagious enthusiasm and can-do attitude.

Elliott Cohen, a student studying for an MBA at MIT’s futuristic Media Lab and co-founder of several start-ups, was charismatic and confident as he led a free-form discussion with people twice his age on commercialising new pieces of technology. Many of those on the Mission left MIT that afternoon feeling most inspired.

So why are we here? It’s a big commitment on the TSB’s part in terms of both resources and cost. The organisation identified healthcare as a lucrative market and the US spends more on healthcare than anyone. In 2009 the US federal, state and local governments spent $2.5tn, or $8,047 per person on healthcare. As countries continue to increase their spend on healthcare so does the TSB.

‘Life sciences and healthcare was a relatively small portion of the overall budget when I first started five years ago because the TSB came from a very engineering/automotive/aerospace type background,’ said Latif.

How things have changed.  ‘Now I’m up at around £55m per annum and it’s one of the biggest areas within the TSB,’ said Latif. 

To put that into context, the TSB as an organisation is spending the same on healthcare as it is on transport, energy and digital combined, although that doesn’t necessarily reflect financial input from other collaborators. Meanwhile, the only sector receiving more investment from the UK government is defence.

So how does the TSB decide what proportion of their budget to allocate to each sector?

‘People need to live somewhere, they need to eat, they need to drink, they need to have healthy lifestyles, they need to stay warm, they need to move stuff,’ explained Latif. ‘Those are how you separate our your hierarchy of needs and define the size of market opportunities.’

Latif and his team of eight (soon to be 12) focus on specific areas within healthcare where they feel the TSB can make the most significant difference.

‘Pharmaceutical companies are spending billions of dollars per year so us adding another £25m is not going to make any difference,’ said Latif. ‘But we have to identify the areas where we think the link between the market and the link between the technology can be leveraged by us making a focused investment.’

The three aspects of healthcare the TSB invests in are assisted living, personalised medicine, and regenerative medicine.

The first is crucial to meet the demands of an ageing population with the UN warning only last week that the number of people on the planet over the age of 60 could rise above one billion within a decade.  Meanwhile, here in the UK, the number of pensioners is expected to nearly double, from 10 million to 19 million, by 2050.

The vast majority of us won’t make it through to old age without taking medicine along the way. But individual drugs don’t necessarily work for everyone, even if they are prescribed to treat identical conditions, said Latif. ‘In many cases the drugs only work in 33% – 50% of patients.’ The others may not benefit or may suffer side effects. Determining which patients will respond well to the drugs, from those that won’t, is not easy but it is possible in many cases. If successful, ‘you can get to a better patient outcome quicker and strip out cost from the system while being more effective in delivering healthcare,’ explained Latif.

The final area of regenerative medicine is where Latif is investing most heavily within healthcare. ‘It’s the view that you can not only give treatments to patients but also lead to cures,’ said Latif. ‘A lot of that is based on cell therapies and stem cells. I invested £80m over 2 years in regenerative medicine and it’s improved people’s confidence and raised the profile of what we’re doing here in the UK.’ 

The Missions, which also include a ‘cleantech’ and a ‘webtech’ flavour, show no signs of dying out. In fact, thanks to the continued support of the TSB and UK Trade and Investment, there are several more already in the pipeline. Meanwhile, the first reunion party for people that have attended previous Missions will be held before the end of the year.