Hat Trick for Quotient Bioresearch at the East Cambridgeshire Business Awards


should be really proud. I’d like to extend huge congratulations to Michael and a big thank you to everyone at our Fordham site.”


Dr Michael van der Merwe, winner of the Business Person of the Year award, added: “I’m delighted and honoured to have been presented with this award. I’m very keen to engage with our local business community and share new ideas and best practice through our creative swiping initiative.”


Quotient embraces creative swiping - the concept described by management guru Tom Peters - and is keen to engage and exchange ideas with companies in East Cambridgeshire as part of its commitment to a culture of learning and improvement.


The Quotient Bioresearch team collecting the Employer of the Year award


Quotient Bioresearch, a leading provider of early stage and specialist drug development services, has been presented with three awards at the East Cambridgeshire Business Awards held in November.


Quotient won awards in both categories they were finalists for; Employer of the Year and Dr Michael van der Merwe, Associate Director of Business Development won Business Person of the Year.


The Awards, organised by the Ely Standard and held at the stunning Ely Cathedral, also saw Quotient scoop the Business of the Year award for the second consecutive year. The judges said they were extremely impressed with the clarity of vision that the company possesses and commented that Quotient was an outstanding company and a worthy winner of this award.


Dr Steve Pleasance, MD of Bioanalytical Sciences at Quotient Bioresearch, said: “This is a fantastic achievement for us and everyone


Dr Michael van der Merwe, Associate Director of Business Development being presented with the Business Person of the Year by Mark Peck, Director from Cheffins.


MORE INFO. 555


UK Company makes Double Breakthrough with MRI Scanner


UK-based MR Solutions has announced two major breakthroughs that could bring bench-top 3 Tesla MRI scanners into more pre-clinical research laboratories.


The scanners have been developed using super-conducting magnets which eliminate the need for liquid helium cooling; and secondly the scanner’s stray magnetic field has been cut so that other laboratory equipment can be safely operated within centimetres of the unit.


“These breakthroughs have two significant benefits,” said MR Solutions Chief Executive Dr David Taylor. “Firstly, the cost is dramatically reduced by doing away with the liquid helium cooling and attendant safety devices. Secondly, the space required for the system is only the size of a desk.”


MR Solutions, based in Guildford in the south east of England, is already


a major player in the rapidly growing Chinese market and is gaining increasing recognition in Europe and the US.


“We are sure that our new bench-top MRIs will be welcomed with open arms by labs which are always constrained by budgets and lack of space” added Dr Taylor.


The company has 25 years of experience in developing scanners for research and academia and also develops MRI systems and sub systems to individual customer specifications.


With offices in the US and Hong Kong, it has a workforce of more than twenty people, many of whom are physicists, programmers and engineers and works closely with universities involved in preclinical research in Europe, Asia and the US.


MORE INFO. 557


Groundbreaking Life Sciences Collaboration wins Innovation Award


A joint venture company between Abingdon Health and the University of Birmingham won ‘The Open Collaboration Award’ at the Lord Stafford Awards ceremony and dinner held in November. The primary objective of Bioscience Ventures Ltd is to enhance and maximise the value of intellectual property in the field of in vitro diagnostics. The company takes medical diagnosis products, such as devices which provide rapid and cost-effective detection of multiple myeloma, and develops them for the marketplace. Abingdon Health and the University of Birmingham have each invested £1 million into Bioscience Ventures Ltd which currently employs 19 people.


The project builds on Birmingham’s growing reputation as a global centre


for life sciences and was recognised at the Lord Stafford Awards, which took place in November 2012. The awards, now in their 15th year, were set up to showcase, celebrate and recognise collaborations between business and academia in developing innovative products, processes or services.


Dr Chris Hand, Chief Executive of Abingdon Health, commented: “We are delighted to receive this award, which recognises Abingdon's approach to commercialising innovation. The University of Birmingham has a first class medical diagnostics science base and we are delighted to be helping to commercialise this science for the benefit of patients and other stakeholders. We believe that ventures like ours are vital to unlocking the potential of the knowledge economy and keeping Britain competitive.”


MORE INFO. 558 Small Hampshire Firm is Big Hit in China


Plasma Quest, which is run from a business unit in Hook Hampshire, has recently sealed a £400k deal with Zhengzhou University in central China. During the process the company sort advice from exporting experts, UK Trade & Investment South East.


The firm’s founder, Professor Michael Thwaites has also been awarded a Visiting Professorship by the University for his work in plasma research and innovation. He has also been nominated for a prestigious ‘1000 Talents’ Professorship by the Chinese government.


Professor Thwaites said: “This deal has given us the opportunity to showcase our technology and expertise in China. This is the second large contract we have been awarded in China, but we enlisted help from UKTI to give guidance and support to ensure that this more complex order was dealt with effectively.


“Having subsequently visited the customer in China I feel more equipped to go ahead and negotiate new business deals and am pleased with the support which is available to me.


“Taking the plunge and getting out there has paid off and we have already had a huge amount of interest in the applications for our technology across China.”


UKTI China Business Adviser, Chris Lowsley, who helped Plasma Quest and works with companies across Hampshire said:


“Approaching the Chinese market can be particularly daunting, but I see many companies who are technologically advanced winning new business in China’s growing and dynamic science based marketplace.


“It is often wrongly assumed that the UK only imports from China, but British scientific and technically based products are seeing a huge success there. In fact British exports across many sectors are increasing rapidly but we are still only scratching the surface of this important market.


Plasma Quest will now be supported by the UKTI’s popular Passport to Export scheme, designed for businesses new to exporting.


Further information from www.ukti.gov.uk MORE INFO. 559


Synoptics Health Appoints Peskett Solutions as UK Distributor


Synoptics Health, a new division of Synoptics, a leading developer of digital imaging systems for scientific applications, is delighted to announce the appointment of Peskett Solutions Ltd as its exclusive UK and Ireland distribution partner for ProReveal, an ultra sensitive fluorescent test for detecting protein contamination on surgical instruments.


The company will also be providing the ProReveal viewer that can be used in conjunction with the test.


Matthew Peskett, MD of Peskett Solutions explained: “We saw the ProReveal technology being developed by Synoptics Health in collaboration with Queen Mary University of London and were amazed by how easily it could detect where protein contamination is located on a surgical instrument.


Current protein tests don’t really tell you where the protein is on an instrument and in an SSD, knowing where the protein is, can help you pin-point if and where, the issues lie with your decontamination process, and this is where ProReveal will provide a major benefit.”


Peskett added: “ We believethat ProReveal will be a real advance for decontamination testing and this is why we’re very excited to be chosen as UK distributors of this innovative technology.”


Paul Ellwood, CEO of Synoptics Health commented: “We are delighted to be partnering with such a well-respected decontamination company to help us support our ProReveal Test.


Peskett Solutions has an extensive network of professionals with SSD expertise and this will make it quicker and easier for decontamination professionals to implement the ProReveal technology into their facility, confident that they will have expert guidance in their transition to a more sensitive and cost-effective protein decontamination testing method.”


MORE INFO. 556


New Funding to Research 'Super Material' Graphene


Scientists at Imperial College London are set to receive over £4.5 million of public funding to investigate how the 'super material' graphene can drive improvements in high-tech industries, such as aerospace design and medical technologies.


The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne MP, announced on Dec 27 2012, funding of £21.5 million of capital investment to commercialise graphene, one of the thinnest, lightest, strongest and most conductive materials to have been discovered, marked by the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics as one of the world’s most ground breaking scientific achievements.


Three research projects at Imperial will share the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) funding as part of a new programme with a number of industrial partners, including aeroplane manufacturer Airbus. The scientists receiving the grant hope to develop graphene technologies that will contribute to the UK economy and can be applied by industries around the world.


Professor Neil Alford, Deputy Principal for Research in Imperial's Faculty of Engineering, who is playing a key role in one of the new projects, said: "This is a tremendous opportunity for UK science and industry. The new funding will enable us to bring graphene a step closer to useful applications, by helping us explore the physical and mechanical properties of this remarkable material, as well as its behaviour at high frequency."


"At Imperial we will use the funding to build on first class research that crosses several College departments to vastly improve current technologies such as catalysis, supercapacitors, membranes, multifunctional polymer and ceramic composites and a whole range of applications at microwave and optical frequencies.


We will work on improving the mechanical properties of composite materials, and addressing the electrical properties of devices, to develop exceptionally sensitive sensors for a range of applications in environmental monitoring and the medical sciences," he added.


MORE INFO. 560


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