Sistemic supports TalentScotland

 21 September: Sistemic, UK: Sistemic, a growing and successful biotechnology company, recently recruited a new Senior Bioinformatician with TalentScotland’s help. Sistemic and TalentScotland share a mutual goal of attracting ‘new blood’ from the international life science market to Scotland.

The new recruit Max Bylesjo, originally from Sweden, moved to Scotland to work at Sistemic in bioinformatics and was grateful to TalentScotland for all the information they provided. Max was recently interviewed by TalentScotland and talked about his work at Sistemic, his perception about living in Scotland, and his future goals http://bit.ly/Maxinterview

Sistemic specialises in targeted miRNA profiling technology (SistemRNA™) for drug discovery and stem cell therapy development and its employees are very proud of their Scottish connections.  Jim Reid, CEO of Sistemic, is a Scot and talented businessman. He freely admits that in his view Scotland projects an “excellent business environment” for life sciences and a range of other modern industries.

Reid, who has many years experience of working for pharmaceutical and biotech companies across Europe and in Switzerland, said: “Scotland has a great deal to offer,  new  technologies and applied knowledge continue to emerge from our world-class universities, driving the development of spinoff companies”.

 Jim Reid recently gave an interview to TalentScotland about the origins of Sistemic and his hopes for the future of the company http://bit.ly/Jiminterview

Press Release from Nexxus Scotland: Winning streak continues

11 November 2010

In a remarkably short space of time, an innovative Scottish SME has set up a sales facility in the United States, won its first major pharmaceutical contract, secured its first EU and US customers, been awarded a SMART Research & Development Grant, filed three new patents and launched three new products.  And as if this wasn't enough, on 10 November it fought off competition to win the Nexxus Most Promising Young Life Science Company of the Year (West) Award in front of an audience of around 130 life scientists gathered to celebrate local life science achievements.

Glasgow based Sistemic only started trading in late 2009 but have already established themselves as major players on the global life science stage.  The organisation, whose primary business is focussed on providing innovative, problem solving services and kit based products to the life sciences research and development markets has gone from strength to strength and is exciting interest in the UK, the US and the Far East. 

Chris Hillier, CEO (pictured right, between Graeme Boyle, Director of Nexxus and Chris Packard, Chair of Nexxus Steering Group West) said,"I am delighted to receive the Nexxus Award on behalf of the staff, Directors, founders, and partners who have worked so hard this year to take Sistemic to the point where we now have true leadership in our market. Our ethos has always been that Sistemic has a global perspective and I think we've shown this by opening our Boston office so early in our development.  However, it is equally important that we show leadership in Scotland, and we have a strong commitment to building close relationships with customers, suppliers, government and collaborators here at home. This Award is testament to that approach."

Graeme Boyle, Director of Nexxus said,"There are many elements which are crucial to commercial success - amongst them are a strong management team, innovative and well priced products that address identified market needs and, perhaps above all, a proactive approach in seeking out opportunities for partnership and collaboration - Sistemic has all of these, and more.  It is a prime example of the right way to set up and grow a business and exactly the type of positive, high achieving Scottish organisation the Nexxus Most Promising Young Life Science Award of the Year was intended to recognise."

The company started trading following initial seed investment from ChimaeraBio Ltd, the UK based venture fund created by serial life science entrepreneurs Jim and Karen Reid (Non-Executive Chairman and Non-Executive Director of Sistemic respectively).  The strong management team includes CEO, Professor Chris Hillier who was formerly CEO of the award winning Biopta; CSO, Dr Vincent O'Brien, formerly a Senior Fellow at Imperial College and Dr Verna McErlane who took part in the inaugural Saltire Fellowship programme last year which is designed to equip individuals to help Scottish SMEs transform into companies of scale. 

Its services and products are already finding favour among pharmaceutical clients, and local collaborations to date include the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow and Roslin Cellabs.

BioPharm America 2010

BioPharm America 2010 opened yesterday at the Copley Marriott in Boston, MA.  We went to a fantastic session chaired by Reeve Brock of Harvard Stem Cell Institute on "Regenerative Medicine: Bridging the Gap between Science and Commercial Success". On the panel were some of the rising stars and stars of the regenerative medicine fields such as Tengion, Pervasis Therapeutics, iPierian and J&J.  Some of the issues and challenges highlighted included 

• willingness of patients to be the first treated with  a new technology
• modifying the current standard of care as this will involve a fundamental paradigm shift
• absence of reimbursement codes
• governing bodies acceptance of new tools/methods in this field 
• the need for new bioprocessing methodolgies

Fantastic discussions and a great way to kick off the event. The Access to Innovation session focussed on Biomarkers and combination therapies.  I have to say over and over again we have been hearing about the increasing importance of Biomarkers.

Chris Hillier, CEO of Sistemic highlighted the session Proof of Relevance: The New Standard for Partnering". It seems no longer sufficient to simply have proof of concept for a molecule, proof of relevance is also needed which is a measure to  reduce commercial and regulatory risk as opposed to the traditional need to reduce scientific risk.  Chris mentioned that "SistemRNA is a platform which can be utilized to measure proof of relevance to select the initial and downstream indications to inform on early strategy".  Ed Saltzman, the chair of the session mentioned that drug developers need to build biomarkers into their strategy from day one as Pharma have zero tolerance towards regulatory and commercial risk.

Day Two brings presentations from Big Pharma and biotechnology companies alike. Sistemic's CEO Chris Hillier, will be speaking about their SistemRNA platform and the breath of fresh air it brings to the Biomarker and Quality Control markets amongst others, in the Enabling Technologies session at 12 noon in the Clarendon room.