John joined the University of Birmingham in 2009 from a career in industry and has substantially raised the external profile of the University with business. As a result of John’s vision and drive, in November 2010 The University of Birmingham and medical diagnostics specialists, Abingdon Health Ltd, announced the launch of Bioscience Ventures Limited (“Bioscience Ventures”), a new joint venture aimed at developing and marketing new diagnostics products for the healthcare and other industries. The venture will focus on conditions where there is currently an unmet need in - for example various forms of cancer and bacterial diseases.
To achieve this, John and the team at Alta Innovations brought together a number of new patent opportunities in the area of medical diagnostics and an existing internal University activity engaged in manufacturing and selling peptide reagents. They then found an experienced external management team that were willing to invest both time and money to take these assets and create a new joint venture business that is a centre of excellence for the commercialisation of medical diagnostics and services.
The new business is already a beacon of good practice in technology commercialisation and could reach revenues of £20m within 5 years. Without John’s enterprising outlook and problem solving abilities this new development would not have taken place and the University would not be in a position to deliver the economic and societal impact which is now possible through Bioscience Ventures Ltd.
James Wilkie, CEO of Alta Innovations said, “Joining forces with an experienced management team has greatly accelerated the progress of our medical diagnostics technology to market. Although these developments are always a team effort we are very pleased that John’s personal contribution has been recognised in this way.”
For further information, please contact Tim Yates, Marketing Officer, Research and Commercial Services, University of Birmingham, via 0121 414 8635 or t.yates.1@bham.ac.uk.