BioWales is in its eighth year and has grown from a standalone conference to an international event comprising a major exhibition and a biopartnering section, which has been expanded to allow more than the 325 one-to-one meetings that took place in 2009.

The 2010 conference will look at hot topics in the sector – including the key theme of stem cell industrialization for drug development and therapy – with a line-up of eminent speakers including Nobel Prize for Medicine winner Professor Sir Martin Evans, Professor of Mammalian Genetics at Cardiff University; Stephen Minger, Head of Research and Development for Cell Technologies at GE Healthcare; and Anthony Davies, VP Product Development at Geron. Other themes featuring at BioWales 2010 are translational research, point-of-care diagnostics and cancer genetics.

New for 2010 is a series of workshops built into the programme, to which delegates are invited to sign up in advance. These cover the topics of FP7 R&D funding from the EU, finance and opportunities in Wales.

The Welsh life sciences sector involves more than 330 companies located throughout Wales, employing more than 15,000 people and contributing more than £1.3bn to the Welsh economy. Big sector names include 3M, Siemens, Dow Corning and GE. The sector covers everything from medical technology to agri-environmental and food, and from medical and industrial biotechnology to drug discovery.

Opening BioWales 2009, Welsh Assembly Government First Minister Rhodri Morgan AM said: ‘Bioscience will be a key strategic industry for the future of Wales and is already an increasingly important part of the Welsh economy. Wales is in an ideal position to exploit the growing need for research and development into life sciences'.

The BioPartnering event is being co-ordinated by the Enterprise Europe Network, and organizers are looking to emulate last year’s event, which produced several successful collaborations.