The biotechnology business, which aims to develop lucrative cures for disease, is itself in poor health in the UK. A pall was cast over the sector in the late 1990s by the implosion of a flagship company whose drugs did not work. Returns have remained disappointing to this day.

But scientists with a taste for business, such as David Harper and Steve Howdle, are battling on. They are determined to prove dismissive investors wrong by adding new treatments to the pharmacopoeia.