Manager uses pop songs to attract international businesses to Runcorn

Ryan Lewis, site operations manager for the SOG Group who run The Heath Business and Technical Park in Runcorn, performed at a leading international biotech exhibition in Japan.

Ryan attended the event to promote LaunchPad, an initiative which offers global businesses short-term licences to enable them to road-test the facilities that the technical park has to offer.

SOG hope to use the programme to attract more international companies to consider locating to the UK.

More than 900 organisations from 30 countries attended BioJapan Expo 2018, staged in Yokohama.

Outside of work, Ryan is the bass guitarist in a Merseyside band, The Hummingbirds, so he decided to play with other Brits from the UK science sector to entertain the global audience with renditions of ‘London’s Calling’ by The Clash and the Oasis hit ‘Wonderwall’.

The UK band was the brainchild of Phil Jackson of MedCity UK, the organisation that promotes and grows the life-sciences clusters.

Ryan said: “We performed London’s calling to promote the south east and Wonderwall as a song that is so synonymous with Manchester, to highlight the UK science offers in the north west.

“I was struggling a little at some of the networking meetings trying to explain to Japanese people who SOG are and what we do.

“However, music is an international language everybody understands and BioJapan’s ‘Battle of the Bands’ evening was a brilliant and fun way of breaking down the barriers.”

Launchpad offers businesses a fully serviced office space for three months, a fully serviced laboratory for three months along with manufacturing, warehouse and storage availability.

Ryan added: “LaunchPad provides international companies looking to build or extend a business in the UK with a base and address from which to operate whilst they take time to explore the UK’s scientific capacity, and how this can benefit their business.

“The programme was well received and is already generating enquiries.”