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Midlands manufacturers urged to turn to £6 billion health market

The University of Warwick's Warwick Manufacturing Group are launching a new programme to help Midlands manufacturing companies tap into the massive relatively new and fast growing health technology manufacturing market that a recent Government report valued as worth up to £6 billion in the UK alone.

At the launch of the new "Health Tech" programme, on Tuesday 18th January 2005 at 9am in the Warwick Manufacturing Group's International Manufacturing Centre, Alan Curtis, (Principal Research Fellow the Warwick Manufacturing Group) will say:

"You only have to watch an episode of ER to realise that the amount of technology that is being used in modern healthcare has grown in leaps and bounds. Whilst ER is a work of fiction a weighty work of fact was published last November. That was the final report of Health Industries Task Force, co-chaired by Lord Warner and Sir Christopher O’Donnell. The task force has done valuable work in defining the nature of the health care industry as a fast growing sector and in identifying the opportunities for companies in the UK to play an important role in its development."

"They estimate the world market as being worth some US$170 billion. The UK has a market of about £6 billion, £4.5billion of which is supplied by UK manufacturers who also export some £3 billion worth of healthcare products and I believe that there is a great opportunity for West Midlands engineering in this sector."

"Yes there is a new language to learn, yes there are regulatory issues and issues of procurement. But firms who have worked in the automotive aerospace or railway industries will be more than familiar with tight deadlines, tough standards and quixotic purchasing systems."

The Health Tech launch will explore these market opportunities and showcase the work of a number of local manufacturing companies that are already exploiting them. One such company that will be attending the launch is Redditch based high tech medical research company MCS Medical. It supplies precision engineered, orthopaedic and dental implants and surgical instrumentation and also offers a bespoke research and development service to assist in creating innovative new surgical products.


For further information please contact:

Alan Curtis
Warwick Manufacturing Group
University of Warwick
Tel: 02476-572559

Warren Gray MCS 01527-597683

Peter Dunn, Press and Media Relations Manager
University of Warwick mobile 07767 655860
02476 523708 p.j.dunn@warwick.ac.uk