KTN Microbiome Strategic Roadmap
As a member of the KTN Microbiome Innovation Network, we are proud to have contributed to the KTN Microbiome Strategic Roadmap in the Personal Care and Hygiene sector.
The roadmap was written by a team of industry experts from Walgreens Boots Alliance, PzCussons, Croda, Lonza, GSK, J&J and NBIC, highlighting the commercial and strategic opportunity not to be missed to funders and regulators.
This is an important sector for the UK economy with some of the world’s leading Personal Care and Hygiene companies being based in the UK and, with more than 50% of the UK population suffering from a microbiome-associated skin complaint each year (thereby placing a substantial burden on the NHS), there is a clear and pressing need for solutions.
Despite the importance of microbiome research and innovation to UK export-led growth employment, and the individual wellbeing of consumers, the Personal Care and Hygiene sector has not so far been recognised in UK research strategy, science education, inward investment and small-tech sectors.
The KTN Microbiome Innovation Network strongly recommends that this needs correcting.
As with nutrition and wellbeing, clarity on the UK regulatory status of consumer product microbiome innovations is also needed to unlock research and commercial investment. One of the key steps to enhancing microbiome science and innovation for human health, nutrition and wellness will be the establishment of a human microbiome research and innovation collaboration network.
For more information on the roadmap, visit the KTN website.
At NBIC, we are keen to continue bringing our academic and industry partners together across all sectors relevant to microbiome. We can leverage collaborative efforts and enhance partnerships, and we are particularly interested in exploring and interacting across the larger personal care microbiome community.
The BBSRC held a one day forum in March 2020, designed to help understand the current and future capability needed for microbiome research and enable UKRI-BBSRC to support the continuing development of Integrative Microbiome Research in the UK. This provided UKRI-BBSRC with advice around the opportunities for microbiome capability across the breadth of UKRI-BBSRC’s microbiome research areas, covering areas including skills, infrastructure, and emerging research approaches. This downloadable document is a summary of the workshop and not a strategy, it is provided as a resource for the microbiome community.
More information on UKRI-BBSRC’Ss overall approach to Integrative microbiome research can be found on the BBSRC website.