Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

The company has now announced a collaboration with US-based lab automation giant, Beckman Coulter, to create one of the most sophisticated, automated monoclonal antibody production systems in the world - and it will be based in Cambridge.

The company has already doubled its Cambridge floorspace and could quadruple its workforce; recruitment is already underway. A local antibody pioneer has recently unveiled the final part of its significant expansion plans, spending £5m to keep the facility in the region and avoid outsourcing to the Far East.

As the global demand for monoclonal antibodies increases, Cambridge Science park-based Abcam is scaling up its manufacturing operation, aiming to quadruple its in-house production capabilities.

Abcam, which markets a vast range of antibodies to the worldwide research community via an online catalogue, began a drive to increase production this summer that has already included more than doubling its floorspace in Cambridge.

The company has now announced a collaboration with USbased lab automation giant, Beckman Coulter to create one of the most sophisticated, automated monoclonal antibody production systems in the world, to be based here in Cambridge.

"In terms of niche specific suppliers, the new facility will make us one of the top three antibody producers in the world," said managing director of Abcam, Jim Warwick.

As the global research community has increased its demand for antibodies, Abcam's business has grown organically, but the company now stands to benefit from making more anitbodies inhouse, which comprise just five per cent of its current catalogue.

"We have been manufacturing antibodies for years, but as the company grows, it makes sense to manufacture our own products for a number of reasons," said Warwick.

"It's important to have a good spread in our product offering, and we still recognise the specialist skills base of facilities around the world.

"But our catalogue will have doubled, or even tripled in five year's time, and we are aiming for our own products to comprise 20 per cent of that, instead of the current five per cent.

"As well as giving us control over our supply chain and quality control, an increase in in-house production will give us proprietary ownership over any antibodies we discover, which make for significant assets on the balance sheet."

The key has been its collaboration with Beckman Coulter, which has supplied that automation equipment that has allowed Abcam to keep its operation here in the UK.

The equipment, which repre sents almost 60 per cent of the total capital expenditure for the expansion, will give Abcam the ability to "automate many aspects of hybridoma generation and ensure total quality control and reproducibility of the processes involved," the company said in a statement.

Monoclonal antibodies are created using hybridoma technology, which was first described in 1975. But while it is already technically possible to produce large numbers of different monoclonal antibody-producing cell lines, traditional methods are labour and consumable intensive and time-consuming.

"The equipment allows us to have tens of staff, whereas the scale of production we are looking at would've meant hundreds in the past," said Warwick.

"To remain economically viable the operation would have to move abroad, possibly to Asia.

But we looked at ways to increase production whilst staying in the UK.

"After deciding to stay in the country, we looked briefly at areas like Wales and Scotland which benefit from Government funding, but decided to remain in Cambridge.

"The region has a good range of lab techs and experienced scientists, who know antibodies extremely well, that we can draw on for new staff. It was an attractive factor, there is a big synergy."

The company has already started recruiting new staff, with plans to add 30 or 40 people to its current 20-strong team.

• Abcam has appointed a new CFO, Jeffrey Iliffe, a highly experienced finance professional with a track record in the City, the healthcare industry and in ecommerce who has been working as a financial consultant at Abcam for the past four months.

The appointment is part of a planned succession in which, as previously announced, Eddie Powell will leave the company on November 20 after almost eight years as CFO.