L-R: Dr Marta Veses Garcia, Pelle Friberg and Dr Karin Gillner
Symcel – producers of the cell-based assay tool for real-time cell metabolism measurements, calScreener — is expanding to bring its patented technology to the clinical antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) markets.
The company is currently commercially leveraging the Horizon 2020 funded Phase II (AST) project — in which multi-resistant bacterial infections will be clinically validated using Symcel’s sensitive screening method.
Dr Marta Veses Garcia, Symcel’s new application scientist, will lead the experimental work within the Horizon 2020 project together with scientific partners from the Karolinska Institutet and other European research institutes.
She is a scientific expert in antimicrobial sensitivity testing methods who previously worked for the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. At Karolinska, she developed a novel diagnostic chip for antibiotic resistance and has expert knowledge of the requirements for developing experimental designs in-line with clinical and regulatory requirements.
Dr Karin Gillner joins Symcel as a Project Manager tasked with running the Horizon 2020 project including from an innovation management perspective. She has more than 15 years experience of research, project management and coordination of multi centre studies.
“Our business development strategy has evolved and is now twofold: we will be targeting growth both from sales to the big clinical microbiology market, as well as increasing revenues from key research markets including metabolic, microbiology and 3D culturing applications.”
“We will focus sales activities specifically on the microbiology research market — especially targeting developers of antibiotics in academia and industry as well as scientists working on solutions to biofilm formation and antimicrobial resistance,” said Jesper Ericsson, CEO of Symcel.
Pelle Friberg will also join Symcel, as the sales lead, working closely with the CEO on the company’s sales and marketing strategy. Prior to this, he worked for BioLamina where he was instrumental in building up key accounts and direct sales strategies within the cell-based assays research market in Europe.
The newly recruited personnel will facilitate the advanced expertise of the company’s senior executives ultimately responsible for driving the company’s corporate and scientific development.
Symcel’s pioneering calScreener method has already established significant sales and research projects amongst scientific and clinical key opinion leaders in the antimicrobial resistance and antimicrobial susceptibility testing fields — a factor, which underlies Symcel securing the Horizon 2020 grant.
Ericsson said: “We are very pleased to welcome Marta Veses Garcia, Karin Gillner and Pelle Friberg to the company at this exciting time in its development..
“We look forward to utilising their respective skills and working closely with them all as we clinically validate our innovative technology in AST and initiate our five-year plan to enter and expand into the clinical space.”