UK's biotechnology industry is suffering from 'by and large pretty bad' management, according to Stuart Willis, chairman of biotech firm Protheris and healthcare company SSL International. Addressing the annual conference of the BioIndustry Association, Mr Walis said 'There are a lot of very bright scientists around but for them, the controls and disciplines don't exist. In many companies, the quality management required to do things effectively does not exist.' He is convinced that poor management will be partly responsible for further consolidation in the industry as mergers are often opportunities to recruit higher calibre executives.
PPL Therapeutics, the cutting-edge biotech firm responsible for Dolly the sheep, is to cut its workforce by a third. The company said it would axe 80 of its 220 jobs at two sites - most of the job losses will be in Scotland although some will go at PPL's site in Virginia in the US. The firm declared that it had been affected by delays to core projects.
The scientist responsible for bringing British Biotech to its knees last year is to become chief executive of Oxford Gene Technology - a firm which has developed a technique for putting DNA fragments on tiny chips. The new job comes four months after he accepted an out-of-court payment of about £200,000 from British Biotech for libel and wrongful dismissal. Dr Millar expects Oxford Gene Technology to make a profit within two years by providing gene analysis services to drug companies.
Sources and References
-
Dolly the sheep firm to shed a third of staff
-
Biotech managers 'poor' claims Wallis
-
Biotech rebel to run Oxford pioneer in genetics
-
PPL Therapeutics sheep lose their shepherds
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.