The winners of the North East of England’s leading healthcare awards were revealed on Thursday 4 December 2008 at a glittering ceremony hosted by Cels, the organisation driving the growth of the sector in the region.
More than 320 guests gathered at the Hilton Newcastle Gateshead to see six companies and individuals pick up the top honour in categories including outstanding growth, innovation and partnership with the NHS.
The awards celebrate the achievements of the North East’s thriving healthcare industry and competition was tough this year with an increase in the number of companies nominating themselves.
The full list of winners is as follows:
Export Achievement Award, sponsored by the UK Trade and Investment – IDS Ltd
Innovation Award, sponsored by NHS Innovations North – Avecia Biologics Ltd. Highly commended – Rocket Medical plc
Outstanding Growth Award, sponsored by Sintons Solicitors – Tynetec Ltd
Partnership with the NHS Award, sponsored by the North East Strategic Health Authority – Neural Pathways (UK) Ltd
Business Start-up Award, sponsored by Murgitroyd and Company – ReInnervate Limited
BioNEt Award, sponsored by sanofi-aventis – Professor Colin Jahoda
The winners of the first five awards will automatically be entered into the Medilink UK National Awards, which recognises the UK’s most innovative healthcare companies. Three of last year’s regional winners tasted success at national level walking away with top honours in the categories.
The awards dinner was hosted by Wendy Gibson with Chris Ryan concluding the evening with an inspirational and motivational after dinner speech about his solo escape during the Iraq war in 1991. A charity raffle at the ceremony raised £2,000 for Diabetes UK, which works to support the 100,000 people in the North East with diabetes.
Commenting on the awards Cels CEO Mike Asher said; “The Business for Life Awards are a great opportunity to highlight the fantastic work being carried out across the healthcare sector in our region and we’re delighted Chris Ryan was able to attend. The North East is rich with healthcare and life sciences companies that are doing exciting work across a wide range of fields and they deserve to be recognised. We wish all the winners the very best at the national awards as they represent the North East.”
More information about this year’s Award winners:
IDS Ltd – Winner of the Export Achievement Award sponsored by UK Trade & Investment IDS picked up the award for Export Achievement for their sales of healthcare products which supply the clinical and research sector. The company saw an impressive 88 per cent increase in export sales last year, a turnover of £18.66 million and their product range has been introduced into South America and Eastern Europe.
Avecia Biologics Ltd – Winner of the Innovation Award sponsored by NHS Innovations North Avecia is a leading private biotechnology company focused on the development and manufacture of innovative biotechnology-based medicines. From their base in the Tees Valley, Avecia has developed ‘pAVEway’ which is a combination of novel promoters, DNA operator sequences and repressor proteins which uniquely exploit the concept of DNA looping to deliver production vectors.
Tynetec Ltd – Winner of the Outstanding Growth Award sponsored by Sintons LLP
Tynetec picked up the award for Outstanding Growth due to the success of the design and manufacture of social alarms, telecare sensors and access control systems. The company has increased its’ turnover by 29.9 per cent from £5.56m to £7.22m over the last twelve months.
Neural Pathways (UK) Ltd – Winner of the Partnership with the NHS Award sponsored by the North East Strategic Health Authority
Neural Pathways picked up the award for Partnership with the NHS for their innovative community service providing specialist rehabilitation to people with complex neurodisabilities. The team provide therapy treatments ranging from one-off assessments and short courses of therapy of one type through to full team approaches over a longer period to all ages. Neural Pathways has developed a strong working partnership with the NHS over the past five years to offer flexibility and integrated choices for patients.
ReInnervate Limited – Winner of the Business Start Up Award sponsored by Murgitroyd & Company
ReInnervate is a biotechnology company specialising in the development of enabling technology to enhance cell and tissue growth in the laboratory for use in research, drug development and regenerative medicine. The company has successfully developed working prototypes of two of its leading technologies and are in a unique position to introduce these products into the market over the next six to eighteen months.
Professor Colin Jahoda – winner of the BioNEt Award sponsored by sanofi-aventis
Professor Colin Jahoda was awarded this new discretionary award for 2008 for his research work at Durham University. The BioNET Award recognises excellence in translational research and the pioneering work being carried out in both the private and public sectors throughout the region. BioNEt is the North East of England’s leading network for research scientists and is the major platform for sharing ideas and developments in the health, healthcare and life sciences sector.
