NextGen to quit the East of England for the US - News - Life Sciences - Business Weekly

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NextGen to quit the East of England for the US

Written by Lautaro Vargas
Thursday, 24 April 2008
NextGen Sciences' biomarker testing laboratory in Ann Arbor, Michigan The NextGen Group in Cambridgeshire is severing its ties with the UK and moving out of the East of England by the end of the year. Following completion of a strategic review initiated by new chief executive, Mike Pisano at the end of 2007, the Alconbury headquartered biotech group is to refocus on provision of biomarker services from its Ann Arbor, Michigan US, facility. As a result NextGen will now look to either divest or wind down its three UK divisions – software, contracting and instrumentation – which are all based at the Alconbury HQ in Cambridgeshire. All of NextGen’s resources will be focused on growing the biomarker service business and exploiting the pharmaceutical industry’s trend towards outsourcing research. The existing US-based biomarker team will be strengthened through the addition of key personnel and operational infrastructure. Some new posts are available in the US, though it is unclear just how many of the Cambridgeshire-based staff will transfer into these jobs. NextGen said that its strategic review had identified the key opportunities for the business were in biomarker services for its pharmaceutical and biotechnology customers, a market it said is set to grow beyond $21bn (£10.5bn) in the next five years. NextGen expanded its service portfolio to include biomarker testing, discovery and assay development in November 2007 and the group says it is already making good progress with its pharmaceutical and biotechnology customers with projects in therapeutic areas such as oncology and Alzheimer's disease nearing delivery. NextGen was established in 2000 by Kevin Auton, who then set up Cellexus Biosystems in 2005. Set as favorite Bookmark Email This Hits: 457 Trackback(0) TrackBack URI for this entry Comments (0) Subscribe to this comment's feed Show/Hide comments Write comment Show/Hide comment form This content has been locked. You can no longer post any comment.