David Browning, a former CEO within Philips Healthcare and Consumer Lifestyle, has been appointed Director of MediCity, the new Nottingham-based health and wellness business incubator.  

MediCity, a collaboration between Alliance Boots and BioCity, is an incubator designed to provide a stimulating and supportive business development environment for innovators in consumer healthcare, medical technology, diagnostics, and beauty products. MediCity is based within the Nottingham Enterprise Zone on the Alliance Boots site in Beeston.  Businesses housed at MediCity will benefit from BioCity’s experience of growing successful businesses in specialised incubator environments and Alliance Boots expertise in the global healthcare market.

As Director of MediCity, David will oversee the refurbishment and population of the historic D6 building which will provide fully serviced office and laboratory space. Work is already underway as first tenants begin to take up space, and interest builds from meetings, events and conferencing organisations.  MediCity will be providing support to businesses which is part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund.

David Browning brings more than thirty years of applied healthcare experience to his new role. As a scientist and entrepreneur, he has led the development of new products and services for leading healthcare organisations with an emphasis on diagnosis, personalised medicine, and health and wellbeing.  A background in Clinical Biochemistry in the NHS, followed by senior positions with Amersham International, Kodak Clinical Diagnostics and Ortho Clinical Diagnostics (a Johnson & Johnson company) inspired David to lead start up organisations including Oxonica Healthcare Ltd. where he worked with Boots UK to launch a revolutionary new technology, Optisol™, an active ingredient used in some Soltan products, Boots own brand suncare range. David spent five years with Philips during which he managed a wide range of innovation initiatives, encompassing personalised medicine, point-of-care diagnostics and pro-active wellbeing.

Most recently, David has developed and supported a number of entrepreneurial businesses, both as a coach on the UK Government’s Growth Accelerator and in leadership roles, including Cognotiva, delivering unique software-based platforms for health and wellbeing and Cizzle Biotechnology, developing novel diagnostics for lung cancer.  He brings extensive experience of working as an entrepreneur across leading centres for innovation, including Oxford, Cambridge, the Netherlands and the Silicon Valley.  

Commenting on his appointment David said, “It is a real privilege to join the BioCity team with the opportunity to create a health and wellness incubator on a par with leading global innovation centres. I grew up in the East Midlands and I am looking forward to working with talented innovators of new clinical and consumer products. We will draw on a network of business, financial and technical experts, as well as Alliance Boots experience, to help them commercialise their ideas.”

BioCity CEO, Dr Glenn Crocker, said: “David’s appointment is a real coup for MediCity. He has an incredible wealth of experience of working with early stage innovative businesses and technologies and this, combined with the access to Alliance Boots innovation and product development knowledge, is already proving an extremely attractive proposition for companies. I am sure David will make MediCity a great success.”

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