The CAN initiative, led by Swansea University in collaboration with Trinity College Dublin, Dublin City University and University College Dublin, will hold the Forum and Conference at Swansea’s Liberty Stadium on Wednesday, September 26. 

The event, which will begin at 8:30am, will be delivered in partnership with the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship at the world-renowned Rice University in Houston, Texas, USA and aims to mirror the success of Rice’s annual Texas Life Science Venture Forum.

It will bring together leading national and international businesses and academics in Nanohealth and keynote speakers include Professor Andrew Barron, Welch Chair of Chemistry and Professor of Materials Science at Rice University, Texas and Dr Trevor Howe, Head of Structural Biology and Biophysics at Janssen Research & Development (part of Johnson & Johnson).

The CAN Venture Forum is aimed at businesses seeking support to commercialise new concepts in healthcare, or facilitate further growth of their enterprise and there will be up to nine pitching presentation opportunities available to selected companies, as well networking opportunities with CAN Associates and Affiliates.

Professor Steve Conlan, Director of the Centre for NanoHealth at Swansea University, who leads the CAN initiative, said: “The forum is an ideal platform for SMEs with interests in the emerging Nanohealth sector to showcase their business and technologies to an audience of investors, venture capital companies including Finance Wales, health industry experts, pharmaceutical business leaders and fellow entrepreneurs.

“The event will also include pitches from overseas businesses from the US and China, who are looking for opportunities offered by CAN and its European base.”

CAN welcomes applications from companies who wish to pitch at the Venture Forum, as well as those interested in attending as a participant or investor.   

Each organisation wishing to participate or pitch at the event must register as a CAN Affiliate Member (£100 plus VAT per annum), which then enables them to attend the event with up to three representatives from their organisation.  Companies will then get ongoing membership benefits throughout the year.

For full details and to apply please email: CAN@swansea.ac.uk, or visit www.celticnano.eu.

The £1million Celtic Alliance for NanoHealth (CAN), launched in January 2012, is backed by £765,000 from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) under the Ireland Wales Cross Border (INTERREG 4A) programme.