Richard Mason, head of Johnson & Johnson Innovation, London (EMEA), talks to Scrip senior writer, Lucie Ellis, about why R&D innovation hubs are still necessary to boost new scientific developments in the healthcare sector.

Big pharma investments in early innovation are paying off in ways that still are hard to measure in any concrete way, but green shoots are sprouting through the pavement as startups supported by multimillion-dollar initiatives evolve from concept to reality.

Scrip's second full day of meetings and events during the annual BIO International Convention delivered diverse insights about including patients in drug development, sharing risk with CROs, microbiome-targeting therapies, and the benefits of incubating early-stage technology.