ABC.L Regulatory News (ABC)

9 May 2006 07:02

ABCAM Plc09 May 2006 For immediate release 9 May 2006 ABCAM PLC ("Abcam" or "the Company") Appointment of Head of Commercial Development Abcam plc (AIM: ABC), a rapidly growing company that markets antibodies via anonline catalogue, is pleased to announce that Dr Linda Cammish has beenappointed as Head of Commercial Development, a role in which she will focus onthe expansion of the Company's product lines. Linda, who has a PhD from Cambridge University and an MBA from Henley ManagementCollege, has spent the past three years providing business development andmarketing consultancy services on a contract basis to a number of life scienceand biotechnology companies. Prior to that she worked at NextGen Sciences Ltd,where she was Director of Business Development. Earlier in her career Linda worked at Mettler-Toledo Myriad Ltd as InternationalMarketing Manager, at Perkin-Elmer Biosystems (now known as Applied Biosystems)as Senior European Marketing Manager, at PerSeptive Biosystems (UK) Ltd asSenior European Product/Marketing Manager and at Millipore (UK) Ltd as aEuropean Product Manager. Commenting on today's announcement, Jonathan Milner, Abcam's Chief ExecutiveOfficer, said: "I am delighted that Linda has joined Abcam. Linda will beinstrumental in developing the Company's strategy to expand the business. Herbackground is impressive and her industry contacts will prove useful as we moveAbcam forwards." For further information please contact: Abcam + 44 (0) 1223 696000 Jonathan Milner, Chief Executive Officer Eddie Powell, Chief Financial Officer www.abcam.com Buchanan Communications + 44 (0) 20 7466 5000 Mark Court Mary-Jane Johnson Notes for editors About AbcamAbcam is a producer and distributor of research-grade antibodies headquarteredin Cambridge, UK, with a US office located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Abcamwas admitted to AIM in November 2005 and trades under the ticker symbol ABC.The Company produces and distributes its own and third party produced antibodiesto academic and commercial users throughout the world with product informationprovided and ordering available through the Company's website, www.Abcam.com.The antibodies are sold almost entirely under the Abcam brandname. The Company'svision is to build the largest online antibody resource in the world while alsoensuring that the antibodies are of high quality and commercially viable. Abcamnow has an online catalogue of almost 19,000 products, most of which areantibodies, from over 170 suppliers supported by up-to-date and detailedtechnical data sheets, which are created by the Company. The Company currentlyemploys 90 staff. The Company was founded by Dr Jonathan Milner (CEO), Dr David Cleevely(Chairman) and Professor Tony Kouzarides (non-executive director) in February1998. Abcam was established with funding provided by friends and family of thefounders and business angels. Since establishment, the Company has grownsignificantly, driven by the increased availability and use of the internet andthe expansion of the Company's product base, which in part is due to the rapidgrowth in the number of protein targets derived from the human genome project.In 2004, Abcam was ranked by Deloitte as the 11th fastest growing technologycompany in Europe. In April 2005 it was awarded the Queen's Award for Enterprise. The Companyreported its first profit in the financial year ended 30 June 2003. In April2005 the Company moved its headquarters to larger premises in Cambridge, UK andits US subsidiary to larger premises in Cambridge, Massachusetts. About antibodies Antibodies are proteins produced by white blood cells in response to theintroduction of a foreign body known as an antigen. Antibodies, which have awide variety of uses in research, diagnostics and therapeutics, are used bybioscientists in research into disease and into the human genome, where they areused to mark and identify specific cells and other living matter. The number ofhuman antibodies of use in research is potentially greater than one million. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange