DUNMURRY-based pharmaceutical firm Fusion Antibodies, established in 2001 as a spin-out from Queen's University, is to double its workforce to 30 to help position it meet the growing global demand for its services.
Invest NI has weighed in with support of £97,500 for the new posts which include 10 graduate and two senior scientist posts, one technical support post and two business development posts to promote sales throughout Europe and the USA.
And when the 15 jobs are in place at the company's headquarters in Springbank industrial estate, it will contribute an additional £368,000 a year in salaries.
Economy Minister Simon Hamilton described the announcement as "very positive news for the Northern Ireland economy”.
“Fusion Antibodies is one of the most innovative companies in our growing life sciences sector," he said.
"It has had a strong focus on R&D and its expertise is helping to accelerate the development of human drugs for a range of diseases.
"The company is now capitalising on its knowledge base with an ambitious target of doubling revenues within the next three years."
The company, which is a contract research organisation specialising in antibody engineering, offers services to other pharma companies and identifies antibodies to be used in areas like cancer therapy.
It is focusing on growing its revenues significantly through promotion of its complex next generation 'CDRx Antibody Humanisation Platform' which allows for humanisation of any antibody species and has a reputation for being highly reliable and accurate.
The company's managing director Dr Paul Kerr said: “In the past four years we have humanised more than 65 novel targets for pharma and biotech clients in Asia, Europe and the USA and we foresee major growth in this area.
"The 15 new staff will ensure that we are in a position to meet the growing demand for our services."
He added: “We’re grateful to Invest NI for this support and for the support we’ve received in the past which has helped the company to establish itself as respected player in the antibody engineering arena.”
Dr Kerr has been instrumental in bringing the Human Antibodies & Hybridomas conference to Belfast, which is helping to showcase Northern Ireland’s life sciences sector.
