You want to grow a biotech hub? Find a Steve Bates

It takes a certain type of rare person to be able to talk to government, companies and investors, help grow a fledgling biotech ecosystem, navigate it through a turbulent decade, and come out the other side with only praise from all players. Steve Bates, CEO of the U.K.’s BIA, has done that, and now has the chance to do even more as he takes the role of executive chair for the Office of Life Sciences, a newly created U.K. government position.

There are surely lessons for other emerging hubs, but the bottom line is that U.K. biotech got lucky, with Bates rising to the task of helping pull a sector out of the doldrums to become one of the fastest growing biotech regions in the world...