| Introduction

Biotechnology 
Manchester, a city with a rapidly expanding biotechnology community and internationally-renowned academic and research strengths is seen as a genuine rival to Ôoverheated LondonÕ (Financial Times, 2007). The city contributes to 75% of the regional biomedical and life sciences industry, helping the North West to be recognised as one of the top three clusters in the UK. Manchester is also a member of StrategemÕs ÔEuropean Super LeagueÕ of biotech clusters and is ranked in the top 50 in the world by Boston Consulting. 
The capabilities of Manchester UniversityÕs faculties are central to the cityÕs outstanding reputation; its strengths include tissue repair and wound healing, clinical trials capabilities, neuroscience research, bioinformatics and oncology. 
Manchester offers opportunities including: 
TrusTECH Ð managing healthcare innovations and associated intellectual property assets of the NHS in the North West. 
Medilink Ð a technology network providing advice on accessing hospitals, universities and staff in the region. 
ACTNoW helping to accelerate new pharmaceuticals and medical devices into the marketplace. 
National Technology Adoption Hub Ð identifies challenges of adopting new technologies into clinical practices in conjuntion with TrusTECH and aims to increase the adoption of new technologies in all areas of the NHS. Although a national initiative, Manchester was chosen as the pilot site. 

Creative, Media and Digital 
The city region is the UKÕs main creative centre outside of London and its importance will only increase with the relocation of five BBC departments and the 200-acre MediaCityUK development. 
From TV production to animation, website design to e-commerce, advertising to multimedia communications, ManchesterÕs creative industries are blossoming. Employing over 64,000 people across 5,800 businesses, the creative, digital and new media sector can be found in most districts and suburbs. 
Manchester has the talent to support these growing businesses with a student population of 100,000; almost 300 media courses are on offer to students at the 18 universities within a 60-minute drive time of Manchester. There are also strong links between the audio-visual community and the five university institutions in the city region, where more than 6,000 graduates are studying for creative and media-related courses at any one time and another 6,000 are studying computer related courses. 
Manchester benefits from all the main telecoms carriers and all of the UKÕs fibre networks converging at its heart. MaNAP (Manchester Network Access Point) is a major internet traffic hub that serves the UKÕs access to worldwide networks and provides the only internet exchange point in England outside London. 
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Manchester has the talent to support these growing businesses with a student population of 100,000 
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With all these opportunities, in addition to a well-established support infrastructure, the city region has created an environment attracting over 230 major global pharmaceutical and healthcare companies.