Press Release

Osmetech, the international diagnostics group, has appointed two senior managers, Geoff McKinley and Dick Keys to step up the commercialisation of the group’s newly acquired molecular diagnostics technology, ‘Genedrive’.

Geoffrey A. McKinley, Ph.D, is joining as Vice-President R&D and Business Development with Dick Keys, Ph.D., appointed Senior Director Chemistry and Assay Development.

James White, Osmetech Chief Executive, said:

‘It is a real coup for Osmetech to have attracted two senior executives of the calibre of Geoff and Dick. They have extensive experience and a highly successful track record in bringing late stage development diagnostic products to market.

‘They both have worked in major organisations such as bioMérieux, a major French-based diagnostics group and Roche Diagnostics, as well as smaller scale businesses.

‘They will make a fundamental contribution to delivering revenues from our newly acquired genedrive technology.’

Biographical Notes:

Geoff McKinley joined Osmetech from NAXCOR, Inc. where he was Vice-President of Business Development and Research & Development for this early stage biotechnology company. It was engaged in the development of nucleic acid diagnostic products and tools with applications in clinical diagnostics including infectious and non-infectious diseases, genetics and pharmacogenetics. Geoff developed the business plan and strategy for transition from R&D to commercialisation and was responsible for identification and implementation of business or technology opportunities.

Prior to NAXCOR, Dr. McKinley worked at bioMérieux, Inc., a French based diagnostic company, from 1995 to 2002. From 2000 to 2001, Dr. McKinley was Senior Director, Business and Technology for North America and was responsible for identification, evaluation, financial assessment and implementation of business or technology opportunities that enhanced bioMérieux’s product pipeline.

From 1994 to 2000, Dr. McKinley was bioMérieux’s Molecular Diagnostic Project Leader. In this role, he was the global molecular biology business and technology lead for the VIDAS Probe project and was responsible for research and development, manufacture, regulatory, quality, marketing and business aspects of the programmme.

From 1981 to 1994, Dr. McKinley was Vice President, Research and Development for Analytab Products a Division of Sherwood Medical that was owned by American Home Products (Wyeth).

Dick Keys, Ph.D. was Section Manager in the Roche Molecular Diagnostic division. As a founding leader of the PCR team, Dr. Keys developed the technology transfer plan for GMP manufacture and transfer of DNA synthesis, purification and analytical QC characterisation for materials, intermediates and formulations as an instrumental part to the launch of manual and automated PCR-based assays. Additionally, Dr. Keys was responsible for the development of methods in conjugation, labeling, solid support chemistry, manufacturing scale HPLC oligonucleotide purification, magnetic particle chemistry and clinical sample purification.

Dr. Keys used his experiences in molecular diagnostics at bioMerieux, a French based diagnostic company, to successfully develop, transfer to manufacture and manage an outsourced collaboration to install nucleic acid amplification and detection technologies onto an immunoassay platform from 1999 to 2000.

Dr. Keys served as a consultant for a number of biotechnology companies in such diverse areas as enzyme-based peptide ligation for phage display screening purposes using transglutaminases, reverse-transcriptase immobilization, analysis of a commercial plasmid scale-up preparation and purification strategy, DNA synthesis, peroxidase substrate formulations and alkaline-phosphatase-labeling for use in GMP manufacture.

From 2000 to 2002, Dr. Keys worked for VI Technologies, Inc. (Vitex), a biotechnology company dedicated to developing products that improve the safety of the transfusion blood supply. At Vitex, Dr. Keys managed the development of rapid mass spectrometry (LCMS) bioanalytical assays for drug substance and trace impurities in blood while concurrently aiding the organisation to put in place a quality system.

Ends

For further information contact:

James White
Osmetech plc

Matthew Moth
madano partnership Tel: 020 7 378 7033

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