Member Article

Cels Limited and Bionow Limited Merger

Today Cels Ltd and Bionow Ltd announce that they have merged to create one business support and services organisation for the North of England’s life-science cluster.

The new not-for-profit company combines the established and growing membership offering of Bionow with the networking and consultancy expertise of Cels. The team of experienced sector experts will maintain offices in Manchester and Newcastle upon Tyne.

The North of England is one of the UK’s and Europe’s largest biomedical regions; 30% of all the UK’s biomedical businesses are in the North. Comprising over 1000 life science and healthcare companies, it generates turnover of £10.5bn and employment of 38,000. The area is home to the N8 Research Partnership, and boasts world-leading resources in terms of investment, scientific expertise, academic research, science graduates, NHS hospitals and state of the art manufacturing facilities.

The new organisation will extend its highly successful membership scheme across the North under the nationally recognised Bionow™ brand. The membership scheme has grown rapidly to cover over 100 companies and offers a range of benefits specially designed for the sector and is widely acknowledged as one of the best value life-science business support offering in the UK. The Bionow™ membership scheme offers significant bottom line savings in specialist procurement, recruitment, insurance and regulatory support.

The merged organisation will have the expertise, profile and financial resources to work with members to increase interaction and business growth, access a calendar of specialist events across the North of England, and be recognised as part of a vibrant cluster with the critical mass to attract national and international recognition and investment.

Bionow Ltd and Cels Ltd have established strong relationships with key stakeholders across the North of England with many major corporations and universities already sponsors of the network. The Board of the merged organisation plan to extend these relationships to continue the journey of making the North of England’s life science and biomedical cluster one the of the most dynamic, competitive and prosperous in Europe.

Dr John Stageman OBE, Chair of Cels and Bionow said “I am delighted to be able to announce this merger and to work together with our colleagues in the Northeast to drive forward the great progress we have made with Bionow providing added-value services to our members. The increased focus upon the North will allow the benefits already available to over 100 companies to be accessible to many more companies thereby strengthening this important industry sector and significantly supporting the UK Government’s focus upon this sector as a driver of economic recovery.”

Alastair Balls CB, previous Chair of Cels Ltd and Deputy Chair of the merged company said “Through this merger we will be able to extend the excellent work of Cels and Bionow to forge a powerful organisation that can deliver strategic benefits across the North of England and continue the mission of driving economic benefit from this important and global life science sector.”

For further information please visit www.bionow.co.uk

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Georgia Linscott .