Mercia EIS Funds

Leicester spinout MIP Diagnostics appoints CEO

MIP Diagnostics, a University of Leicester spinout that develops molecularly imprinted polymers for research purposes, diagnostics and drug discovery, has begun the initial expansion of its business operations with the appointment of Adrian Kinkaid as CEO. This follows a recent investment of £182,000 made by Mercia Fund Management.

Adrian will begin driving the technology into commercialisation, aiming to expand its uses into several exciting and disruptive research areas, including law enforcement, national security and food safety. He will also work towards building a successful global marketing strategy with the development of a new website, including the creation of a portfolio of successful products.

Adrian has extensive experience in the life sciences sector, with particular expertise in affinity reagents, including antibodies, affirmers and aptamers. He therefore has an in-depth understanding of the market and its competition, which will enable him to effectively market MIPS as a cost effective and high quality alternative to existing agents because of their robustness and speed of development.

Prior to joining MIP Diagnostics, Adrian worked as Chief Commercial Officer for Promexus, a protein biotherapeutics company based on affirmer technology exclusively licensed from Avacta Life Sciences. Before that he was Strategic Market Development Leader for Abcam, the leading provider of research antibodies.

Adrian is also a Founding Member of ELRIG (European Laboratory Research and Innovation Group), a not-for-profit organisation that holds conferences and events for thought leadership in the life science and drug discovery communities. Adrian served two terms as Chairman, during which time he established the flagship Drug Discovery event, which is now the leading conference of its kind in Europe.

Adrian Kinkaid said:

“As the new CEO of MIP Diagnostics, I have the opportunity to bring an exciting cutting edge technology into the market. Furthermore, this technology has the potential to expand into different sectors, from monitoring food for contaminants, to protecting the population from the growing dangers of ‘legal highs’. The technology has a number of advantages, not least of which are robustness, speed of development and the lack of ‘cold chain’ storage requirements.

“It is a privilege to begin working with MIP Diagnostics, and I look forward to building a successful, dedicated team as we start expanding our impressive portfolio of products and services.”

Nicola Broughton, Investment Director of Technology Transfer at Mercia, said:

“Adrian’s breadth of experience and exposure to different affinity reagents makes him more than capable of not only fully commercialising this disruptive technology, but also of moving it into exciting new sectors that cannot be explored by other agents on the market due to their complexity, slower speed of development and storage requirements.”