Ambitious new companies nominated for prestigious life sciences award

Three of Scotland’s most ambitious young life sciences companies have been shortlisted for a prestigious Scottish Enterprise Life Sciences Award 2010.

Midlothian-based, BigDNA Ltd and Glasgow-based companies, Tissue Solutions Ltd and Sistemic Scotland Ltd, have been nominated for the coveted Best New Life Sciences Company in Scotland.

The award recognises the achievements of young life sciences which are progressing well towards commercial success. The winners of the 2010 awards will be announced at the Scottish Enterprise Life Sciences Annual Dinner at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre on 4th February.

One of Scotland’s exciting new life sciences companies, Sistemic Scotland Ltd. was established in 2009 to commercialise products derived from a unique miRNA-based platform technology. The company has made significant progress towards commercial success winning its first commercial contract with one of the top five global pharma giants.

Best New Life Sciences Company nominee, Tissue Solutions Ltd, has grown exponentially since being incorporated in 2007.  The company works with a virtual model to supply ethically acquired and fully consented quality human tissue to pharma, biotech and CROs worldwide. Its client base has expanded to include the USA, Canada, Japan, UK, Italy, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, France, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Belgium and Portugal.

BigDNA Ltd, a spinout company from the Moredun Research Institute, designs and develops new and innovative vaccines targeting diseases of high unmet need and those which require improvements to existing treatments.   The company has gone from strength to strength since being established in 2006, raising significant public and private sector investment.  To date, the company has developed a number of therapeutic and prophylactic vaccine candidates to target a number of human and veterinary diseases.

Rhona Allison, senior director of Life Sciences at Scottish Enterprise, said: “Congratulations to all of the companies who have made it onto the shortlist – they have done tremendously well to make it to this stage. We always expect a high standard of entries for the Life Sciences Awards and this year has been no different.  I understand from the judges that the quality of entries has again been incredibly high and built on the impressive standards set last year.”

“These Awards are a real chance for us to recognise and reward Scotland’s life sciences top innovations and entrepreneurial performers and have become an increasingly important event in the industry’s business calendar.  I’m looking forward to the awards themselves which will, once again, showcase Scotland’s achievements, successes and outstanding talent.”

The keynote speaker at this year’s dinner will be Dr Rod MacKenzie, senior vice president and head of world wide research for Pfizer Inc.and the event will be attended by industry both national and international, academia, the Scottish Government as well as funding specialists who continue to carefully track the undeniable innovation and dynamism of the sector.

The Scottish Enterprise Annual Life Sciences Dinner attracts more than 750 people from the life sciences community in the UK and abroad to celebrate Scotland’s most innovative companies.