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Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said he wants Britain to be a ‘world leader in unicorns’.

Speaking at a London Tech Week conference, the Tory leadership candidate said he wanted the UK to host a greater number of start-up firms valued at more than 1 billion US dollars – known as unicorns.

Mr Hancock, 40, who used to work for his family's software business, told Tech Week delegates he felt proud to be "back among my people" as he arrived on stage at the CogX event in King’s Cross.

He said: "Not a fax machine or a pager in sight. Just lots of unicorns.

"And believe you me, if you've been stuck in the debate about the future of Brexit over the past few months, you might have heard that there have been a few unicorns that have been promoted.

"I say that we need to create more unicorns, I want Britain to be the world leader in unicorns, I want us to be driving ahead and building the great business that we can be very proud of."

The British tech sector has produced one unicorn firm each month over the past year, according to figures released ahead of London Tech Week, which kicked off on Monday.

Data compiled by Tech Nation and Dealroom revealed that the UK produced 13 firms valued at more than 1 billion US dollars (£784 million) in just 12 months.

This brings the country's overall total to 72 unicorns.

Mr Hancock, formerly in charge of the government’s tech strategy, said it was important to transfer knowledge between the technology and health industries.

"There are two different cultures and two different languages. In technology the mantra of old, of course, is to move fast and break things,” he said.

"In health, that's not such a good mantra all the time. Like if you're an orthopaedic surgeon, for example.

"It's difficult to bring the two together, but important that we do.”

"The world of healthcare can learn a lot from you. But there are also things the technology world should learn from healthcare.

"I want Britain to be defined in the years ahead as the most pro-enterprise, pro-start-up place in the world.

"We deal every day in improving lives and saving lives, and the tech that improves lives in health has perhaps the most direct impact on the population we serve than anything else."

Mr Hancock, who launched his official bid for the Conservative Party leadership on Monday, became the first MP to release his own smartphone app in February 2018.

The networking app which features picture galleries and videos of the West Suffolk MP is titled, simply, 'Matt Hancock app'.