Bionow awards under the wing of Concorde

About Richard Maclennan:

I’m Richard, before joining Appleyard Lees and training as a patent attorney I worked as a senior research scientist/study director on an EU research project. My role involved managing a number of different projects and experiments that were continuously producing data that needed to be reported to various stakeholders across Europe. From the first day working in my previous job I was given the overall responsibility to organise and run the projects in the way I saw best. This is not how most people’s first months as a trainee patent attorney usually go!  

After an enforced two-year break, the annual Bionow awards were held in real life, in person and not on a computer screen! I pulled my tuxedo out of retirement for the night and headed off to the Concorde Conference Centre at Manchester Airport to celebrate the achievements of life science companies in the north of England. It was an evening to catch up with familiar faces and clients we hadn’t seen in person during the pandemic.

When you picture a large black tie dinner event you don’t immediately think of Manchester airport! However, the dinner and award ceremony were held under the wings of the flagship British Airways Concorde that is hangered there. We were given tours of Concorde and some of the facts and figures are very impressive. This is especially true considering Concorde was designed and developed without the aid of computers or even calculators and is over 40 years old.

The actual awards themselves celebrate the various successes of the life science sector in the North of England. For example, many of the people at the awards contributed to tackling the COVID-19 pandemic, globally and in the UK, and directly helped to bring about the conditions that allowed us to meet in person again. It was also good to see a few of the clients I work with nominated for (and winning!) awards.

The Bionow awards evening of celebration and networking in person is a good reminder that getting out to these events is a perk of the job and something I enjoy doing. I’m looking forward to helping our clients with their IP to become successful businesses and if they win any awards on the way then that’s even better!

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