TGR Management restructure

The TGR Board wish to advise that they have appointed Ms Anne Hinton as CEO of the company effective 1 February 2012. Anne, previously TGR’s CFO/COO, brings significant commercial experience having been with the company for 10 years, and prior to that held management consulting roles in her own business and for KPMG.

Ms Hinton will succeed Dr Leanna Read, who has resigned from the company from January 31, 2012 after leading the company for over 10 years. Leanna, the founding CEO of TGR, considers that it is timely to hand over the reins and move on to new challenges.

The Board would like to thank Leanna for her considerable efforts in leading the company to a position where it is held in high regard in the international biotechnology industry.

A tribute and farewell to Mike Hirshorn

With great sadness, we learnt that our Director and Venture Capital Investor, Dr Mike Hirshorn, passed away on November 18, 2011 after a long battle with cancer.

Mike had been a Director of TGR since he first invested in our company in 2005 through his venture capital fund, Nanyang Innovation Fund.   Ever since, he has been a tireless supporter of TGR, providing us with the unparalled benefit of his 30 years experience in establishing, building and investing in biotechnology companies.  He brought us much more than investment dollars – we also gained his mentorship, enthusiasm, encouragement, attention to detail and capacity to think outside the square.  We particularly appreciated his unwavering support during the difficult period when TGR changed directions following an inconclusive clinical trial.

Mike initially trained as a medical doctor.  After a brief stint in medical practice, his passion for commercial application of science led him into the corporate sector and to complete formal qualifications in business and finance.  His accomplishments have been many.  He can truly be considered a pioneer of Australia’s medical devices sector, with achievements including founder and CEO of Cochlear Ltd and co-founding director of Resmed,  two global leading medical device companies.  His impact on commercialisation of medical technology has been widely recognised through appointment to numerous industry and government boards, membership of the Young Presidents’ Organisation, and prestigious awards including the 1988 BRW Businessman of the Year for Technology and a 2004 Order of Australia Medal.

More  recently, Mike resolved to use his experience to help foster the development of the Australian biotech industry.  This led him to take up a new career in venture capital.  As remarked by TGR’s former chairman, Bob Moses – “You could connect with Mike because his integrity and lack of any pretence was immediately obvious…..  Those wishing to succeed in either or both technology development and funds management could do no better than to try to emulate Mike Hirshorn.”

Mike bravely battled with his cancer for over a decade.   It never ceased to amaze us that he could consider his health so objectively, and not let it interfere with his work.  In fact, many of his associates were unaware of his illness until a very late stage.

Everyone at TGR will miss Mike’s wonderful leadership, guidance, wit and friendship.  An extremely hard man to replace!  Farewell and many thanks, Mike.

TGR announces distribution partnership with axxora.com

ADELAIDE, Australia & SAN DIEGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–TGR BioSciences, a leading global provider of advanced cell based assay technologies in the fields of cancer, kinase and GPCR research, is extremely pleased to announce a distribution partnership with Axxora.com of San Diego, CA, US, a leading online global market place resource for innovative and high quality Life Science research reagents.

Axxora will become a distributor of TGR’s new ELISAONE technology assay reagents in the US and South America.

Click here for full press release.

TGR announces distribution partnership with Cedarlane corporation

TGR BioSciences, a leading global provider of advanced cell based assay technologies in the fields of cancer, kinase and GPCR research, is extremely pleased to announce a distribution partnership with Cedarlane Laboratories of Burlington, ON, Canada, a leading supplier of Life Science research reagents in North America.

Cedarlane  will become a distributor of TGR’s new ELISAONE technology assay reagents in Canada and the US. The first 20 ELISAONEimmunoassay kits for cellular phosphoprotein detection will be available from early 2011, with further additions to the portfolio coming soon after.

Click here for full press release.

2009 advancing biobusiness award winner announced

Michael CrouchMichael Crouch, TGR’s Chief Scientific Officer, is the recipient of the 2009 prestigious Advancing BioBusiness Award, by leading pharmaceutical company Merck Sharp & Dohme and Advance, a leading network of Australian professionals abroad.

In announcing the award, Dr Phil Kearney, Director, Licensing and External Research at Merck Sharp & Dohme, said “By immersing top biotechnology people in successful commercial research centres in the United States, and providing them with opportunities to share their learning back at home, we aim to build a strong Australian capability to win in this highly competitive global knowledge market.”

2009 advancing biobusiness award winner announced

AdvBioBusinessAwardmerckSharpDohme-logoadvance-logo Top Scientist Aims for More Discoveries and Improved Speed to Market: 2009 Advancing BioBusiness Award Winner Announced

Slashing the time it takes for new medicines to reach consumers and improving scientific discovery in Australia are top of the agenda for leading biotechnology scientist Dr Michael Crouch when he meets with key industry figures in the US in May.

Dr Crouch was selected from a highly competitive field of candidates for the prestigious 2009 Advancing BioBusiness Awards, which will see him attend the world’s largest biotechnology meeting, the Biotechnology Industry Organisation (BIO) convention, which attracts over 22,000 delegates from across the globe.

A tailored program of meetings will also be scheduled for Dr Crouch with top American players including pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, universities and research institutes, to help build valuable international networks, knowledge and collaborations.

The award is an innovative scheme by leading pharmaceutical company Merck Sharp & Dohme and Advance, a dynamic, diverse global community of Australian professionals overseas committed to advancing Australia and Australians.

Dr Crouch is the Chief Scientific Officer for Adelaide-based TGR BioSciences, world leaders in the creation of assay, or test, technologies for the global drug discovery market.

Developing new medicines requires pharmaceutical companies to test millions of drug compounds to see if they are potentially effective – a process which in the past has been slow and laborious said Dr Crouch.

“Our assays are helping important new drug therapies make it to market much faster through state of the art technology that substantially increases testing efficiency,” he said.

The company’s unique range of cell-based tests has reduced operator input by allowing testing to be automated with robots. This faster approach has seen them secure business with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies as well as public sector research laboratories throughout the world.

Through his award win, Dr Crouch is hoping to advance his contacts so he can better understand the needs of the industry including how pharmaceutical companies select drug targets, what they would like to see in a new assay approach and how they make decisions on which technologies to use.

Dr Crouch said he would like to explore potential new partnerships with global players to develop tests to measure bio-markers of various diseases which will be of great benefit to researchers in Australian university laboratories and research institutes.

Research in such facilities is currently very slow and manual. The creation of automated assays that can determine bio-makers of diseases such as cancer will substantially improve their level of scientific discovery,” he said.

Dr Phil Kearney, manager for external scientific affairs at Merck Sharp & Dohme, said Australia is recognised for its excellence in medical research and its vigorous and creative biopharmaceutical industry. However the number of drug development projects which reach advanced clinical development is only a quarter of what would be predicted on the basis of our output in scientific literature.

By immersing top biotechnology people in successful commercial research centres in the United States, and providing them with opportunities to share their learning back at home, we aim to build a strong Australian capability to win in this highly competitive global knowledge market,” he said.

Dr Crouch will travel to Atlanta, Georgia for the BIO International Convention which will be held from May 19-21.

Sourced from: www.msdaustralia.com.au