The first witness I've got is aimed initially at Nick,
but also I think with Brian could pick up two as a company that appears to have already had a strong innovation culture even before COVID.
How did you refine or intensify these once you started responding to COVID?
Yeah, that's a great question. I think there are two elements in that.
One is actually bringing different resources from different parts of the company to a much greater extent than maybe what we did before,
which really relied on the fusion of the sort of algorithm work with the clinical understanding.
I think that was critical in this. And then the second piece was really, I think, a very clear goal.
And typically, I think COVID focussed everybody's minds in terms of this has to be done incredibly quickly.
Well, it's going to be a minimum viable product that you can put together working with clinicians and do that as rapidly as possible.
And then I think generally people work very hard. So weekends, evenings.
There was a massive amount of effort that went in outside of the work hours actually to deliver on time.
So those were the elements I think that came through there. In some ways it was an intensification of what we were doing.
Thanks. Thanks, Nick. And anything more on Brian or I've got another question for you.
If you wanted to take it, wait for that now.
Just to just to build on that, I know internally. Kimberly Clark, it was, you know, we feel we're very innovative, but it did focus in certain areas.
I mean, you only have so many resources, right?
So the the needs or the demands of, you know, the COVID response, we were able to focus a little bit more in the key areas.
Thank you, sir. Next question aimed at Brian was the next issue, Fauci being globally important for opposition.
I think it's I think it's the the the plastics issue.
We've all seen it, the plastics in the ocean, the microplastics, I think that's something that we all need to be very concerned about.
Thank you. So the next question we've got is for both of you.
So do you think the COVID urgency to find global solutions change the culture of
collaboration and willingness to accelerate the process of innovation for the long term?
You know, is it going to make a permanent difference? It's going to get fast and archaic in here.
This is going to be a wait and see. It's like we all played very well together here in the in the near term.
And but but I do think it's and I've heard this through through some leadership internally,
I think it has kind of opened the door is it's a different way of thinking of, you know, we need to tackle these problems together.
And I think you've seen some of in some of the new forms that are starting to form
out there and for these different problem areas like these special workforces.
So I'm optimistic that we're we're moving in in the right direction.
Yeah. I mean, I would say two elements trust and transparency with the things that came out of closer collaboration.
So in the case of the sign of the ICU specialist was leaving the ward coming to talk to us for 20 minutes,
going back into the ward, coming out six hours later to have another conversation with us.
So there was a deep commitment on both sides, which I think was incredible.
I think like Brian's sustaining that outside of that is hard.
But you do have a bedrock of having worked together in that relationship, and that's been sort of forged in a much more potent environment.
So I think that keeps you in good stead as working partners and building deeper relationships to me, I see as being critical.
And I think really to kind of to build on that, it's like what I said before, there's no winners or losers.
We're all going to lose, right? So if we don't collaborate to help solve the problem, there's really not a winner if it's all for nothing.
Thank you. So I've got a question, if I may interject, is so you both touched in your talks about the conversations that you had,
the collaborations that you had with the universities. And I'd just be interested to know, you know, again, you both touched on how they changed.
And is there anything in the way that that those relationships changed or developed again that you'd like to preserve in a post-crisis?
I think from our point of view, Phil, I think it comes down to alignment of objectives is critical.
And I think particularly in university industry partnerships, it's finding that sweet spot of the alignment of objectives, that's important.
I think there are different requirements from a university perspective in terms of commercial return versus a company.
And those are elements that I think, you know, to some extent remain challenging.
I think in the COVID environment, those kind of merged into something in the background in terms of what could be done.
So for me, I think it's keeping being able to work at pace across the complexities of a university or a corporate organisation.
And that to me then comes down to both sides having a clearer understanding of what the constraints and the requirements that both have.
And I think it's help that, but I think those types of dialogues need to carry on to make sure that the momentum continues.
I would agree with that and kind of build on that, it's some from a kind of a scientist's perspective.
It's almost like, you know, you get a couple of scientists in a room, you know,
once somebody from academia and one person from industry, we kind of know what we want to do.
But you know, the way we work with dictators, OK, we got to get legal in the loop.
We have to get the agreement. And that's typically when everything comes to a grinding halt.
Right. So I think that I think the trust and we can and the issue we had, we can move much faster.
Right. Because there was that trust and and so I hope that we can kind of continue that moving forward.
Thank you. So I was going to also ask the same question about the relationship with government,
but will part about because the questions are flooding in now and a kind of international government related question, I suppose.
So question for both of you, which nation should be developing closer collaborative ties with in the midterm?
Well, that's a great question, I can answer that from the perspective of data and health as opposed to the lens I
look at it through and I'd say that we already have very strong ties into the U.S.,
so the transatlantic collaboration is very strong.
The challenge in the sort of analytics data piece as you go eastwards is that different information governance frameworks.
And that presents different challenges in terms of how you access and work with data.
So you can see countries like Singapore, which have a very advanced analytics capabilities and data types.
Those are countries you can partner with. Others where the health care systems are more fragmented, present different sorts of challenges.
And actually, you have to put in a huge amount of work actually to change that.
Thank you. Yeah, from my perspective, like I said before, we have a global footprint, so we kind of work across.
You know, Asia, Europe, we kind of work all across the globe.
I wouldn't say one part is any more important to keep a couple of related questions on competition.
Would you say this would also apply to the East-West relationships, you know,
or I think you've answered the question was it more transatlantic and has the pandemic improved?
The chances of East-West innovation collaborations will polarise them.
Or are you saying that they're there already? I would say politically it was more polarised.
But but I think that there probably was better or more exchange of information.
Okay. So switch of tack from the questions now.
Remote working, which we're still doing now, how did remote working affect your ability to be able to innovate?
What was good about it and where were the challenges?
For for for me personally, this probably goes back to last April or May after the shut down after we put the the the protocols in place.
We never really shut down a lot of our key innovation programmes because remember, our production facilities never shut down.
I mean, there was all the COVID precautions of wearing face masks.
Take the temperature, you know, signing the declaration and things like that.
So we kind of did the same thing in our in our pilot facilities so we could continue to do the do the innovation.
And then, like all of us, you know, we were, you know, Skype, Zoom or whatever.
And in some ways, the information exchange was probably more efficient in terms of meetings and
whatnot because you didn't have as many sidebar conversations and stuff like that.
The one piece that we miss was kind of that spontaneity of meeting a colleague at
the coffee machine and you talk about things that just kind of randomly happen.
And then, boom, you have an idea that was the piece that I think everyone is is missing the tactical aspects of having meetings and things like that.
That's good. Another thing is for some of us that commute, you picked up that commute time that you could actually work or do some things,
you probably actually put more time into work. Yeah, I'd agree with everything.
Brian says that any additional I would make is sometimes I miss that sort of white boarding and brainstorming,
which you can do on teams, but face to face, there's a different quality to it.
That kind of is what I missed.
In addition to the relationship and partnership building with like suppliers and things like that missed that opportunity as well.
Yeah. So the question for both of you again,
what do these evolutions mean to intellectual property and competition for the future as far as both of you concerned?
I think it's building on that kind of a competition question that we had before.
I mean, I'll have a crack at this, I mean, I think it's a really interesting question.
And I know Oxford, through Structural Genomics Consortium and other groups,
has done a lot of work about what you can do in the competitive environment. I think COVID has shown that you could do much more of that.
But I think at the same time, you've got to be clear about the downstream point where the commercial or the IPS
comes into play that I think that needs more thinking and that will vary by industry,
by opportunity of what you're looking at. So there are those two intentions, and I look at it to say the world of data, you know,
you can say Data's pretty competitive to some extent, but there are different tension downstream of that how you define the IP.
So I don't think there's any straight answer that just gives you the panacea of what that should look like.
It's very much on a case by case basis. I agree it's going to be case by case, I think an excellent example this is Volvo.
You know, they're known for, you know, patenting the three point harness. And they just gave it to the complete the whole industry.
Mean it was a safety thing, right?
So if there's a key innovation out there that would combat COVID or would fix the ocean plastics issue and things like that,
I think there's, you know, something like that should be shared.
We could drive it quicker. And I think there's enough opportunity there that everyone can can benefit.
And Q, So we're down to some rapid fire questions now because we've got about five minutes left,
so what how do you maintain the pace and intensity of innovation in other areas?
Wants the urgency of the pandemic wanes?
I think you've got to do that through very focussed management and ongoing prioritisation as a small company, we are able to shift quite quickly.
But you've got to keep very much your eye on the pulse of business as usual.
And that was a challenge that we had during COVID,
but that was something we emphasised internally and culturally saying You've still got to do that and you have to work harder.
I would say during these situations to maintain that.
Kind of being a scientist, I'm always the optimist, anything's possible, right?
So when I think about what we did,
what this world did in combating COVID is is quite remarkable in terms of the vaccines and all that in the way I look at it,
it's like, Well, now we're going to shift our attention towards the next big problem,
which could be, you know, energy or it could be the ocean plastic crisis.
So I get I have faith that if we apply the same energy and tactics that we use
towards COVID towards these other big global problems that impact all of us,
we can get solutions. Thank you, so one questioner wanted to know what questions, Nic, would you ask Brian and vice versa?
So I asked Ron because raising the question around the plastics crisis, how would you approach that?
Because I think you're exactly right on that. That's a major, major crisis.
Do you have any thoughts what you how you'd approach that?
I think it's I think right now, if you look across the whole industry, everybody's kind of in their camps.
Yeah, we kind of know what people are doing, but I think we need to kind of get it.
We need to drop the veil, drop the silos and work more closely together on the real issues.
And I think most of the scientists would love to get in a room and talk about it. But we kind of have the corporate standard work of how we work.
That kind of prevents that in my in.
My question to Nick would be really and I think you hit on it was is how do you tap into big data like A.I. to help drive things more quickly?
That's a great question. It takes a lot of time and a lot of close partnership working with health care system.
So you have to talk to the clinicians, the IT people. You have to understand where the data sits, how you puree to extract, anonymize it.
And that requires what I call a lot of heavy lifting, and no two health care systems are the same.
So you have to be resilient and adaptable and have a close working relationship to understand how the data sets and how you can work with it.
Thank you. So last question in the last minute. So question for both of you how much work your companies doing on the sustainability of your products?
You can go to our Web site and we've got a 2030 vision.
We got the tiniest footprint campaign actually over in the UK.
You can you can check us out on the internet, but there's a lot going on in that area.
Yeah, I think on our side fell. We're sort of focussing on the product to support the ongoing product development.
And then what I would say is keeping the innovation going, which is then aligned with one of the store's sustainability outputs.
What can we contribute that is beneficial within the environment and within the sort of working practises?
And that's something we're emerging and building, but we're still a young company on that journey.
Thank you.
Well, thank you both for a brilliant session to brilliant presentations and contrasting examples and the great Q&A, so I really appreciate that.
So what you've done is given us some really good food for thought.