BIA webinar recording: China outlook - biopharma market conditions and opportunities

Rahul is Counsellor for Healthcare & Life Sciences for UK’s Department for Business & Trade (DBT) at British Embassy Beijing. He leads on UK trade & investment in emerging opportunities between the UK and China. Previously, from 2017-2023, he worked for six years in DBT London HQ and has led on multiple programmes and opportunities in promoting business with UK and other countries. Key programmes he has led on include the genomics, healthy ageing, one health, health systems strengthening, development and formulating the UK Government’s global health framework. Before DBT, he worked in consulting for EY and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He has a master in global politics from the London School of Economics (LSE). 

What does your role at BIA involve?

Steve Bates is the CEO of the UK Bioindustry Association, the UK’s Trade Association for innovative life science companies with over 550 members. Steve is the visible face of the vibrant UK life sciences industry to government and media. He serves on the UK Government’s Life Sciences Council and the UK Biosecurity Leadership Council. Steve was a founder member of the UK Government’s Vaccine Taskforce in the Covid crisis, sitting on its steering Board alongside Kate Bingham. He is active member and former chair the International Council of Biotech Associations and has been a board member of EuropaBio since 2015.

Previous experience & achievements

Steve has championed, with government, effective industrial incentives like the Biomedical Catalyst, which have crowded in private sector investment into UK SMEs. He is a driving force behind the scale up agenda, spearheading policy agenda to unlock UK pension fund capital into productive UK growth in life sciences. He has forged several links for the sector across the USA, Europe and in China. In his time at the BIA, Steve has developed new member groups focused on cell and gene therapy, genomics and engineered biology. A strong advocate of partnership working, Steve champions sector collaboration with research charities and academia. Proud to lead an organisation with a diverse Board with over 40% female representation, Steve is committed to next generation talent and developing the skills needed for the sector to flourish. Before joining the BIA in 2012, Steve worked for Genzyme and was advisor to the UK Government of Tony Blair working on NHS reform and the Northern Ireland peace process. He was made OBE for services to innovation in 2017 and became a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Science in 2020.

Chandler leads the incubation and partnership platform with regional network across  cities nationwide (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Wuxi and Yixing, Qingdao). He is driving the development and enrichment of open innovation & partnering platform for therapeutic area focused ecosystem jointly with cross sectional partners including  government, medical institution, industry, academia,  research and capital, to co-create holistic patient centric solutions. 

As sector lead for Tech and Innovation, Elinor is responsible for supporting British tech and healthcare companies entering and operating within the Chinese market, and leads on CBBC’s engagement for intellectual property matters and export licensing regulation. Prior to joining CBBC, Elinor lived in China for eight years, where she worked as an intellectual property strategist advising international companies on IP strategy in China.
Elinor is a fluent Mandarin speaker and has previously translated for academic journals in the fields of Economics and Law. She holds a bachelor’s in law from The University of Sheffield and a master’s in Chinese law from Peking University, where she focused her research on the use of AI within China’s smart courts.