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 Amersham Pharmacia Biotech Founded:1997 Publicly listed: No Number of employees: 4,500 Main Business area(s): Genomics, Proteomics, Bioassays and Separations. Telephone: +1 732 457-8000 and +46 18 61 20 000 Website Contact: e-mail address is different for each country, visit www.apbiotech.com, contact US section, fill in details and request is routed to appropriate person. |
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Pharmacia Biotech At the heart of the gene economy With more than 50,000 customers worldwide including pharmaceutical, biotechnology and agrochemical companies plus both academic and medical research centres, the company is one of the biggest of its kind incorporating biotechnology systems, instruments, re-agents, software, products and services. Their global presence, coupled with an incredibly broad spectrum of technological innovation, has made APBiotech one of the world’s leading providers of integrated systems and solutions for gene and protein research, drug discovery and development, and biopharmaceutical manufacturing. The expertise, vision and resources “APBiotech has the expertise, vision and resources to give researchers within industry and academia the opportunity to turn the promise of molecular medicine into a reality,” says Per-Erik Sandlund, Vice President of operations and president of the Swedish holding company. “Our vision is to deliver the technologies that are making molecular medi-cine possible so that the genetic basis for disease will be better understood therefore leading to earlier and more accurate diagnosis and treatment.” Merged life-science businesses APBiotech is the result of a merger in 1997 between two leading international healthcare companies - Amersham plc (formerly Nycomed Amersham plc) and Pharmacia Corporation (formerly Pharmacia & UpJohn Inc). The two companies merged their life-science businesses - Amersham Life Science and Pharmacia Biotech - to create Amersham Pharmacia Biotech. The global enterprise now enjoys annual sales of $860m with around 4,500 employees worldwide. Its main research, development and production sites are spread throughout the world including centres in the UK, USA, Japan and Sweden. The company divides its operations into four global business areas; geno-mics, proteomics, bioassays and separations. Within genomics, it provides high throughput systems for gene analysis, gene expression and genetic variation analysis. The biggest bottleneck in drug discovery is testing potential drug targets against drug candidates and the bioassays business area provides ultra-high throughput systems for drug screening. Focus on separations and proteomics APBiotech’s remaining two business areas based in Uppsala, Sweden, focus on separations and proteomics. With more than 40 years of expertise in protein studies, the company provides pioneering systems for the purification of proteins on a laboratory scale and for the production of biopharmaceuticals on an industrial scale. Proteomics, the study of proteins expressed by a given genome, can be used to compare healthy and diseased tissues to pinpoint which of the thousands of expressed, or active proteins, have been altered. This area of research is poised to be the next major technology boom for the drug discovery process. Recognized as a centre of excellence Peter Ehrenheim, Executive Vice President of Separations, explains the company’s Swedish presence. “The part of the company based here in Uppsala was founded on inventions and developments in protein separation and analysis techniques made in Pharmacia and the University of Uppsala during the 1950’s.” The collaboration between the company and academic institutions in Uppsala and Stockholm remains key to the success of our business. From starting as a company selling around $ 2 million of separation resins “our base in Uppsala now provides systems for protein analysis and purification and we provide production tools for virtually all pharmaceutical companies. Today our sales of products out of the Uppsala-based businesses totals more than $400 million” says Ehrenheim. Ehrenheim expects the company’s separations and proteomics operation to carry even greater importance in the future. “We think our research and technology development in Uppsala will become increasingly important because the whole industry is growing very rapidly at the moment, especially the biopharmaceutical industry and I believe that the market for protein purification analysis will continue to be one of our most productive and profitable areas in the future.” APBiotech's influence It is a gauge of APBiotech's influence and size that many of the small start-ups that have sprung-up in Uppsala over the past 15 years have often been founded by ex-APBiotech employees. Per-Erik Sandlund concludes with his vision of the future for APBiotech as one of the world’s leading provider of integrated solutions to the research community and biopharmaceutical industry. “I see the company’s biggest growth areas being in protein analysis, proteomics and biopharmaceutical manufacturing as we strive towards an even deeper understanding of genomics and the influence of proteins on disease. Ultimately, our strength lies in our very broad base of competence and this is something that we will build upon as we endeavour to offer the most comprehensive and integrated research base possible.” For more information about Amersham Pharmacia Biotech, visit www.apbiotech.com Nicholas Mead |
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