L@B Brief - March 2025
Where the UK Lab industry meets
THE GAMBICA lab industry conference which took place in March was a ‘Great conference and worth attending’ according to delegates. The programme’s voice of the customer alongside political and economic forecasts was well received with comments including: ‘Really great spread of subjects and excellent speakers’ and ‘Great to have so many presenters (although the future of research session was felt to be ‘too ‘sciency’ for some).
Delegates loved the ‘Great networking opportunities’ which started with the conference dinner with Champion jockey, Richard Dunwoody whose infectious optimism was somewhat undercut by TV commentator Anand Menon’s keynote presentation which made it clear that we are all in for some difficult times. He highlighted the UK’s productivity problems illustrated by an example from the NHS, which shows that throwing people at the problem doesn’t always work.
Fascinating as always, Anand had the audience laughing despite our woes. Economist, Lee Hopley followed up with more detail on our current economic status in a presentation which was described as: ‘Very honest and believable’ and Joshua Chapman from SLS provided projections on lab sales from SLS’s own intelligence and from the latest Instrument Business Outlook report.9
Professor Marc-Olivier Coppens cheered the conference up with an enthusiastic and impassioned description of developments in the world of nature inspired science and Jess Andrews explained how the Centre for Process Innovation is working on laboratory automation and why it hasn’t got very far.
Tony Withers from Grant and Stephen Pygott from Eppendorf explained to other members what they have been doing to capture the carbon footprint of their products and this obviously struck a chord with delegates asking if this could be developed across manufacturers as a benchmark standard method.
The day was closed by Jayne Green and Christian Walter from Lab training company, George James giving a very funny and insightful run through of how to sell in Europe. This year GAMBICA has been working closely with George James which has offered very well-received sales training on a shared cost basis for GAMBICA members – more is to be scheduled at the start of the summer, but before that we have been lucky enough to persuade George James and Biochannel Partners to offer their famous, ‘Selling through distributors’ training on a shared cost basis just for GAMBICA members. This has brought the cost of the two-day training down from £3600 per person, to under £800 per person for members.
Conference delegates liked the new venue and were especially complimentary about the food, so it has been decided to stay at the Barnsdale again next year. Looking forward to seeing you again then.
Jacqueline 😊
INSIDE this ISSUE
Dragon’s den to win investment for your smarter manufacturing projects
LIMS provider, Interactive Software expands through innovation as it joins GAMBICA
Lab construction and upgrade projects: Stafford, Harwell, Cambridge, Wales and Texas…
Also inside...
GAMBICA events and Industry events – full resume of the exhibitions available to you in 2025