THE future of the organisation that promotes Scotland's medical technology sector has been thrown into doubt after it was told that Scottish Enterprise would no longer fund it.
Support for Medical Devices in Scotland (MDIS), the trade body launched in 2002, will stop on September 30 when SE expects to have a new "one-stop shop" in place to deliver support across the medical technology, biotech and pharmaceutical sectors.
SE has invited organisations from across Europe to bid for the job of running the new network. The invitation to tender, published in the Official Journal for the European Union, asked for either a single group or a consortium to provide a single point of access for sector support under the "Life Sciences Scotland" banner.
The deadline for tenders is tomorrow. A spokeswoman for Scottish Enterprise said she was unable to confirm how many tenders had been received, or whether any of these were from outside the UK.
However, at least two local groups are believed to be interested. Industry sources said BIA Scotland, the trade association representing the country's bioscience sector since 2001, was actively looking at the tender. MDIS is also said to be putting together a bid, possibly as part of a consortium.
Kevin Wilson, chief executive of MDIS, declined to comment on whether his operation was putting forward a tender. However, he did confirm that the "lion's share" of the annual MDIS budget would be lost as a result of the reorganisation by Scottish Enterprise.
"MDIS is evaluating the whole range of potential funding issues, and taking a view of our future funding viability," Wilson said."
The organisation, which has received £1m from SE during the past six years, was set up with the aim of becoming self-funding. However, that has proved a struggle as most of MDIS's 86 affiliates are small to medium-sized operations that pay an average membership fee of about £200 a year.
SE spends about £40m a year supporting the country's life sciences sector, which is one of the agency's "priority industries". Its spokeswoman said that although MDIS had played an important role in the development of the medical technology sector it was now appropriate to look at new ways of delivering the overall support package.
"Reflecting the growing convergence of the life sciences sector, we are currently undertaking an open competitive tendering process that will deliver support for Scottish life sciences businesses operating not just in the medtech sector, but also across the biotech and pharmaceutical sectors," she said.
"Organisations such as MDIS are aware of this process under OJEU rules."
