Pharmaceuticals
2015: No.34 拢105m
2014: No.26 拢120m
The is establishing a pioneering centre to lead research into the world鈥檚 forests, funded by a 拢15 million donation from former student and academic entrepreneur and his wife Barbara. It鈥檚 one of the largest gifts ever given to a British university.
The will study the impact of climate and environmental change on woodlands and the resilience of trees to pests and diseases.
Professor Bradwell, who studied medicine at the university and graduated in 1968, subsequently becoming a professor in the Department of Immunology said, 鈥淭he 海角视频 has the lowest woodland cover of any large European country because of deforestation over the centuries. What little we have remaining is now under serious threat from climate change and imported tree diseases. The new forestry institute will increase our understanding of these challenges in order to help planners, owners and foresters maintain and improve the health of our woods.鈥
Professor Bradwell founded Birmingham-based medical diagnostics company in 1983. It is a classic example of how discoveries in the laboratory can achieve considerable commercial success.
The company was spun out of research work undertaken at the University of Birmingham The team developed a new way to produce highly sensitive antibodies which could be used for diagnostic tests to identify childhood immune deficiencies and blood cancers in adults. Realising they had identified a process with huge commercial potential internationally the research team, led by Professor Jo Bradwell created the Binding Site as a commercial venture.
That was more than 30 years ago. In November 2011, Prof Bradwell sold the majority of the shares in the medical diagnostics company to private investment group Nordic Capital. Jo Bradwell retains a small shareholding and remains on the board. The value of the sale is undisclosed, but it will have been a considerable sum. In 2009, Binding Site鈥檚 auto-immune operation was sold to the Werfen Group for 拢80 million.
Prof Bradwell, 69, remains a professor at Birmingham University and is still involved in research. The Binding Site leases laboratories from the university and does much of its work there. Its headquarters is a state-of-the-art research facility in Calthorpe Road, Edgbaston. Employing 550 people, the company has offices and distributors all over the globe, with a major operation in San Diego, USA. It turns over 拢55 million a year, 90 per cent of which is export-based.
The Binding Site began with a range of clinical research products. It has continued to grow and expand, launching new, high-value, knowledge-based products and opening new offices, the most recent being in Spain. It has year-on-year sales growth of 18 per cent. and has won the Queen鈥檚 Award for Export Achievement, and the Queen鈥檚 Award for Enterprise twice. Forty per cent of the company鈥檚 products are sold in the US. The Binding Site鈥檚 charity partner is Birmingham-based Cure Leukaemia and 25 of the company鈥檚 employees took to Birmingham鈥檚 streets in October to raise money for the charity in the Bupa Great Birmingham Run.
Prof Bradwell is an enthusiastic and accomplished climber. In August 2010 he successfully climbed the 3404m Pico De Aneto in the Pyrenees, and has been on several expeditions to the world鈥檚 highest mountain ranges in the Himalayas and South America.
He is chairman and founder of the Birmingham Medical Research Expeditionary Society which was begun in 1977 when several young doctors started climbing together and, to help fund their expeditions, devised research projects to study the effects of mountain sickness. Since then the society has prospered as a medical research charity, backed by pharmaceutical companies and research funds.
