Plasticell awarded the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Innovation

Plasticell awarded the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Innovation

Plasticell is pleased to announce it has been awarded the 2016 Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Innovation. The award is the UK’s highest accolade for outstanding
commercial success as a result of innovation in recognition of Plasticell’s contribution to the advancement of regenerative medicine, cell and gene therapy as well as other areas of biomedical research. Dr. Yen Choo, Plasticell’s founder and Executive Chairman, will receive the award from HM The Queen at Buckingham Palace on 14 July 2016.

Plasticell’s technology, CombiCult®, performs miniaturised screening of large numbers of variables in combination to determine optimal culture conditions for cells grown in the laboratory. A recent peer-reviewed scientific publication demonstrates how CombiCult® allows scientists to perform and compare 10,000 stem cell experiments in parallel, whereas the individual experiments would require around 200 years performed back-to-back.

The technology thus greatly accelerates the process of drug discovery and has
widespread applications in biomedical R&D, notably in stem cell research and further in industrial manufacture of antibody therapeutics, immunotherapies, cell therapies,gene therapies and research reagents.

Dennis Saw, Plasticell’s Chief Executive, commented, “We are immensely proud to
receive the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Innovation in the fields of medicine and
bioscience. It is a tribute to the longstanding effort and dedication that have gone into
the continued development and promotion of this innovative technology.”

Plasticell, founded in 2002, develops high throughput methods for the commercialisation of stem cell research and regenerative medicine. The Company
currently develops cell therapies, with its lead internal programme in optimizing
manufacturing of umbilical cord blood stem cells, which can be used to treat up to 70 different indications including many cancers. Plasticell also forms alliances with
industry-leading partners to discover and develop further products, for instance a
recently announced collaboration with Pierre Fabre Laboratories to discover plantbased products for the treatment of obesity and diabetes.

In 2010, Plasticell spun out a sister biotechnology venture, Progenitor Therapeutics,
focused on the discovery of small molecule drugs that regenerate specific tissues of
the body in response to disease or ageing.

Dr Choo commented, ” Our company has developed one of the key technology
platforms in the life sciences, made significant progress in developing groundbreaking therapies for serious diseases, enabled multiple partners to advance diverse products towards the market and bolstered the UK biotech industry by spinning out a further biotech venture.”

“This award recognises the exceptionally hard work of our scientists who have made
all this possible, alongside the vision of our investors who have supported the
company over the past decade. We look forward to continued innovation and further
product development as Plasticell progresses its exciting therapeutic programmes.“
added Dr Choo.

Plasticell and Progenitor Therapeutics are co-located at the Stevenage Bioscience
Catalyst, the UK’s first open innovation campus located on the site of
GlaxoSmithKline’s Medicines Research Centre.

About Plasticell
Plasticell is a UK biotechnology company specialising in applying massively parallel
screens to discover optimal cell culture protocols for the development and
manufacture of cell and gene therapies. The company has developed industry leading methods of manipulating cells to maintain, expand, differentiate, mature and
transfect various high value cell types including stem cells. Plasticell develops therapeutic products, with active projects in hematopoietic stem cell expansion,
manufacture of blood platelets and discovery of drugs that stimulate brown adipose
tissue.

Plasticell’s proprietary technology, Combinatorial Cell Culture™ (CombiCult®),
determines optimal protocols for any specific outcome in cell biology through the
sampling of cell culture variables in multiple random combinations. CombiCult® has received a number of industry awards including the R&D 100 Award which
recognises the most significant technology products globally.

Plasticell also forms strategic alliances with industry partners in drug discovery, cell
and gene therapy applications and has announced collaborations with multiple
pharmaceutical and biotech companies including GSK, UCB, JCR Pharmaceuticals,
Laboratoires Pierre Fabre, Merck-Millipore, Sigma Aldrich, NHSBT, Cell and Gene
Therapy Catapult and Progenitor Therapeutics.

For more information visit Plasticell’s website: www.plasticell.co.uk