I’m thrilled to be joining Abcodia’s CEO Julie Barnes (pic) and COO Chris Hodkinson at the Business Weekly annual awards dinner at Queen’s College, Cambridge tomorrow evening as the newly formed molecular diagnostics company has been shortlisted for two awards.

I’ve worked with Abcodia since its launch a year ago and am delighted that they have achieved this kind of recognition so early on. Abcodia is a spin-off of UCL and has been granted rights to commercialise a serum collection, one of the largest of its kind, which was created by leading clinical scientists at UCL and originally formed as part of the UK Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening (UKCTOCS). Up to 50,000 volunteers have provided samples annually throughout the trial which started in 2001 when they began collecting serum samples from over 200,000 women volunteers.

Abcodia continues to seek innovative commerical partners to make groundbreaking discoveries and improve the diagnosis of many common life-threatening diseases, including the major cancers – colon, breast lung and pancreatic – as well as other conditions such as diabetes, osteoporosis and rheumatoid arthritis. Its vision is to harness a network of molecular technology collaborators and commercial diagnostic partners, as well as and working closely with UCL and other academics.

This serum bank now contains over 5 million longitudinal serum samples and, in addition to the serum, Abcodia has access to a valuable database of phenotypic, demographic and disease incidence for each volunteer. Some volunteers who were originally healthy have gone on to develop cancer or a debilitating disease.

Abcodia’s chairman is Dr Andy Richards, well known in Cambridge biotech circles and a business angel who holds several board positions with biotechnology and diagnostic organisations, including Cancer Research Technology, the commercial arm of Cancer Research UK.

Of course, all the shortlisted companies are worthy winners. These are the awards which Abcodia is shortlisted for:

STARTUP BUSINESS OF THE YEAR
For the most exciting startup enterprise in any sector founded in the last 12 months.

BIOMEDTECH BUSINESS OF THE YEAR
For the BioMedTech company that has made the most commercial progress in the last 12 months: BioMedTech covers biotech, pharma, medical devices or diagnostics, healthcare or general Life Sciences.

Thank you to Tony Quested and his team for planning this spectacular event. Whoever wins, I know it is going to be a memorable evening for us all.