Ian Tomlinson appointed Independent Chairman of SBC BoardIndustry lead

Stevenage, UK, September 2 2015 – Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst (SBC), the open innovation campus driving collaboration to improve healthcare, has appointed Ian Tomlinson as Independent Chairman. With extensive pharma and biotech experience as Head of Biopharmaceuticals R&D and Worldwide Business Development at GSK, and Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Domantis Limited ,he will play a key role as the campus continues to expand.

Dr Tomlinson1, formerly GSK’s representative on the Board, replaces John Cooper of the Wellcome Trust and the Francis Crick Institute, who has been Interim Chairman since the death of Allan Baxter earlier this year. John will continue on the Board as the Wellcome Trust nominated director, with an announcement on a new GSK representative to be made in due course.

Opened in 2012 as the UK’s first open innovation campus, Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst has successfully completed Phase 1 of its development, hosting almost 50 tenants who have raised over £70m in investment and research funding over this time. MRC Technology is relocating to the campus in 2016 and the UK’s Cell Therapy Manufacturing Centre will be opening in 2017, cementing SBC’s position as a significant growth asset in the UK. Planning is underway for Phase 2, which will build on this success, continuing to drive healthcare innovation in the UK.

Martino Picardo, CEO o fStevenage Bioscience Catalyst, commented, ‘The Board is delighted that Ian has become Chairman at such an exciting time for SBC. His experience and understanding of the sector will be pivotal in making our campus vision a reality. Many thanks are also due to John Cooper, whose insight and advice have been valuable for many years in his roles as the Wellcome Trust nominated director and Interim Chairman at SBC.’

Ian Tomlinson, Chairman of SBC, said, ‘Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst is one of the UK life sciences sector’s most compelling locations for scientific excellence and company growth, so I’m delighted to be helping to lead its development, along with Martino’s executive team and the rest of the SBC Board. As part of the next stage of our development we will be seizing upon the tremendous opportunities opening up on the campus to exploit disruptive technologies such as bioelectronics, precision medicine and cell therapies, driving improved patient health through convergent medical technologies.’ 

–ENDS–

1Photograph available on request

 

For more information, please contact:

StevenageBioscience Catalyst

Martino Picardo, CEO                                                                            +44(0)1438 906906

Emma Palmer Foster, Strategic Communications Consultant                   +44(0)7880 787185

comms@stevenagecatalyst.com           

Notes for Editors

IanTomlinson – Biography

Ian Tomlinson is former SeniorVice President, Head of Biopharmaceuticals R&D and Worldwide Business Development at GSK. He joined GSK in 2007 when it acquired (for $454m) Domantis Limited, a company he founded in 2000 with Sir Gregory Winter. Domantis was focused on the development of an entirely new class of drugs based on the smallest fragments of antibodies, known as domain antibodies, and had raised $83 million from a range of investors by the time of acquisition. Earlier in his career, Ian graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, UK and then spent 11years at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, where he initially worked on the completion of the sequencing and mapping of all human antibody genes, and latterly on engineering recombinant antibodies. In addition to his involvement on the SBC Board, Ian sits on the Board of the UK BioIndustry Association, and is part of the Major Awards Committee for the UK’s Biomedical Catalyst funding scheme.

About Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst

Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst (SBC) opened as the UK’s first open innovation biomedical campus in 2012, and combines a unique blend of infrastructure and virtual networks to drive collaboration. Backed by a unique partnership between Government, GlaxoSmithKline and the Wellcome Trust, the remit was, and remains, to catalys einnovation for patient benefit in a phased development. SBC has a strong commitment to companies that focus on high quality science and share its vision, and its development of activity clusters and direct access to the expertise of a major pharmaceutical company are among its unique characteristics. There is start-up and grow-on space for companies, plus a commercially focused management team viewed as a leader in UK incubation. With Phase 1 at capacity, Phase 2 is in development for the continuation of the collaborative vision, with a focus on convergent medical technologies. Co-located with GlaxoSmithKline in Stevenage, Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst is located close to both London and Cambridge. For more information, please go to www.stevenagecatalyst.com.

About Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst’s stakeholders

Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst’s stakeholders are GlaxoSmithKline (www.gsk.com), the Wellcome Trust (www.wellcome.ac.uk), the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (www.bis.gov.uk), and Innovate UK (formerly the Technology Strategy Board; www.innovateuk.org).