News

October 2010

Sirigen completes financing round worth £3.83m and appoints new directors to the Board

Sirigen is pleased to announce that existing investors Seraphim Capital and Oxford Capital partners have invested further in the business. Joining them are a syndicate of new investors comprising IQ Capital, NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) and YFM Private Equity.

Alongside the appointment of two new Investor Directors, Ivan Griffin of NESTA and Max Bautin of IQ Capital, Sirigen is also pleased to announce the appointment of David Evans as Chairman of the Board of Directors, and Arthur Cole as Non-Executive Director. For further details please see the press release.

June 2010

Sirigen welcomes 3 new chemists

Sirigen is pleased to welcome Frank Uckert, Haiqing Li and Barry Leonard to the chemistry team. Frank brings with him a wealth of relevant experience in conjugated polymer technology and production techniques from electronics industry while Haiqing and Barry add great strength to the production team allowing Sirigen to ramp up the quantities of materials we produce in line with customer expectations.

• Dr. Frank Uckert is an international expert in developing materials with champion performance for Organic Electronics. His unique background combines Chemistry, Physics, Materials Science and Manufacturing of Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLED).

  He received his doctoral degree in Chemistry from the Max-Planck-Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany, where he did research with Prof. Dr. Klaus Muellen on novel blue light-emitting polymers for use in OLED.

  In 1998 he joined DuPont Central Research & Development in Wilmington, Delaware working on novel organic conducting & semiconducting polymers. In the year 2000, he became a member of the newly formed organic LED department and he started DuPont’s synthesis program on novel conjugated polymers.

  In 2002 he transferred to DuPont Displays in Santa Barbara. There he was responsible for the development and scale-up of organic polymers for use in DuPont’s OLED displays. He was also closely involved in the OLED display manufacturing process.

  Frank joined Sirigen as Senior Scientist, Polymer Production in May 2010.

• Haiqing Li received his MS degree in Organic Chemistry from Mississippi State University. After that he worked for Metabasis Therapeutics as Research Associate over eight years in various drug discovery projects.

  Haiqing joined Sirigen in May 2010 as a Technician Chemist.

• Barry Leonard received his B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Michigan where he worked under Marc Johnson, synthesizing organic ligands for use in organometallic catalysis. Barry went on to join Johnson and Johnson's drug discovery programme. As a medicinal chemist he focused on the organic synthesis of small molecule enzyme inhibitors for the treatment of metabolic disease.

  Barry joined Sirigen in June of 2010 as a Technician, Polymer Production and aids in the process development and production of commercial polymers.

January 2010

Melanie Stewart joins Sirigen in the US to support Finance and Admin

Melanie joins Sirigen as the finance manager of the US facility. She has over 10 years of experience in accounting and office management. Melanie has enjoyed working in many different industry fields and brings a unique perspective to her position. While she manages the accounting for the US office, she also is responsible for the facility and any of the day-to-day challenges or needs that arise. Melanie supports the Sirigen Executive Team as well as coordinating Human Resources for the staff in the US.

January 2010

Les Eastlake joins Sirigen as the new Financial Director

Les has a Degree in Mathematics from Imperial College and is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants. He gained his accounting qualification whilst working with the British Steel Corporation and Alcan Aluminium. This has been followed by 30 years of Finance Director and General Manager experience, specialising in medium size businesses, both independent and part of major UK and US corporations. These have covered several industry sectors including engineering, consumer chemicals, and more latterly specialist research chemicals for the pharmaceutical and biotech industry.

For the last 12 years (7 as Finance Director and 5 as General Manager) Les has been with Maybridge, which was acquired by Fisher Scientific in 2002, and became part of Thermo Fisher Scientific from 2006. As General Manager, Les was also a member of the Leadership Team of the $250m Global Chemicals Division, headquartered in the US with plants in New Jersey, UK and Belgium.

We are delighted to welcome him as a member of the Sirigen team.

July 2009

Jean Wheeler joins Sirigen's expanding Chemistry Team

Jean Wheeler joined Sirigen Inc in July of 2009. Jean graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with honors in Materials Science and Engineering. She’s co-published several articles on structural bioinformatics and brings with her experience in organic and inorganic chemistry techniques, analytical chemistry, tissue culture and harvesting, GC method development and validation as well as histology and imaging techniques.

June 2009

Seraphim Capital Fund and Oxford Capital Partners invest further £1.2 million in Sirigen

Seraphim Capital and Oxford Capital Partners have invested a further £1.2 million into Sirigen - the company applying ground-breaking, Nobel Prize winning light amplification technology for use in the diagnostic and life science sectors. The round follows the £2 million previously invested in April 2008.

Mark Boggett, Investment Director at Seraphim Capital says “In spite of the impact of the adverse economic climate, Sirigen has made tremendous strides over the last 12 months, entering into commercial agreements with several global leading diagnostics companies. This is testimony to the strength of its game-changing technology which now stands at the forefront of the next generation of innovation within the diagnostics industry. We are delighted to continue to support the Company’s as it goes from strength to strength.”

May 2009

Sirigen inks commercial deals for Project Green

Sirigen is pleased to announce that it has signed commercial contracts with two major companies for “Project Green” - the early access program for development of a novel bright 532nm polymer-streptavidin conjugate to replace phycoerthyrin (PE). This novel chemical dye has relevance for a variety of key applications including the Luminex platform.

It is anticipated that the new conjugate label will be completed for the collaborative program members during Quarter 4 of this year.

April 2009

Sirigen launches customer demonstration seminars at its San Diego labs

Sirigen is pleased to announce that we will be running frequent demonstration days at our San Diego facility to give interested parties firsthand experience of High Sensitivity Fluorescence™.

If you would like to see with your own eyes how Sirigen’s technology can transform your applications please register your interest and book a date using the form on our customer support web page.

March 2009

Sirigen’s chemistry team expands with the appointment of Yongchao Liang

Yongchao Liang joined Sirigen Inc in March of 2009. He received his PhD from the University of California Irvine and his MS from Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Liang brings a multitude of experience in organic synthesis, purification, electroluminescent polymers and has worked in both pre-clinical and clinical trial study in the cGMP manufacturing environment. With the benefit of experience in scientific entrepreneurial endeavours at many different stages of company development, he is a welcome addition to our team.

January 2009

William Huisman joins Sirigen’s chemistry team

William Huisman joined Sirigen in January 2009. He received his Biochemistry degree from the university of California in Los Angeles. He did his post doctoral studies at the Veterans Administration Hospital in San Diego and at San Diego State University; and has worked for International Immunology.

He brings extensive chromatography experience including analytical HPLC and preparative FPLC including ion exchange, size exclusion and affinity purifications. He has also been an internal auditor in an ISO 9000 environment.

October 2008

Sirigen headquarters

Sirigen has relocated its headquarters to Ringwood, Hampshire on the south coast of England. The modern facility houses the Group’s CEO, CFO, commercial team, finance, IT, HR and administration.

September 2008

Lan Tran and Jennifer Alcantar join Sirigen’s chemistry team to accelerate the production of new polymers

Lan, a Pharmacological Chemistry graduate of the University of California, San Diego specialises in the multi-step synthesis of organic compounds and their analysis.

Jennifer gained her Chemistry degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara and has worked for MicroConstants, Nanosyn and BioFocus. She now also brings her valuable synthetic, analytical, purifications and QA experience to Sirigen.

15 September 2008

Sirigen launches Project Green for Luminex Partners

Sirigen is pleased to announce a commercial programme to accelerate implementation of High Sensitivity Fluorescence™ on the Luminex family of instruments. Development of a 532nm polymer for the reporter channel of these instruments will deliver improved analytical sensitivity in both immuno and molecular applications. Interested parties are encouraged to contact Sirigen to find out how they can be amongst the first to benefit from this initiative.

10 August 2008

San Diego move

Sirigen moves its chemistry and applications biology team to new premises in San Diego. The well equipped laboratories offer the substantially enlarged team the space and extra facilities they require. Sirigen further benefits from an excellent pool of candidates from which to make further appointments and increased participation in the world class local biotech community.

April 2008

Seraphim Capital

Seraphim Capital, the £30 million Enterprise Capital Fund led a £2 million round of Series B investment in Sirigen alongside Oxford Capital Partners. The investment enables Sirigen to continue to exploit its technology across the £47 billion biomedical industry.