Published 15.03.2010 (Press release)
Dear customer, business associate, collaboration partner, friend and everyone else with an interest in Marine Biochemicals,
I am delighted to announce the launch of a number of changes at Marine Biochemicals which I will try to describe below. I see these initiatives as a positive and logical extension to the establishment of Marine Biochemicals as a separate company in the Biotec Pharmacon corporation June 2009 outlining a promising path for the future.
Since our inception as a separate company we have managed to deliver our best year ever and realized a growth of over 50% in 2009 vs 2008 and it pleases us to see that the drivers seat has been taken over by newer products than the “old” SAP since our Cod UNG and dsDNase is growing at rates over 100% year on year.
The careful observer will notice that we have changed the name of the company slightly for daily purposes. We are in future contexts using the name Marine Biochemicals – a name linking us to the origin of the company in the early 1990´ies. The official name of the company is still Biotec Marine Biochemicals so there is no impact on any agreements entered.
I am confident that those of you who have been in touch with us recently will recognize that we have developed our own identity during the short time we have been on our own feet. You will now see a brand new design introduced boasting of our roots solidly planted in the Northern regions of Norway with a colour scheme mirroring the fascinating lights of the North.
New design line
You will see a new logo centered around the profile of the prominent mountain near Tromsø – Tromsdalstind – against the sky where a patch of Northern Light merges with snow on the mountain but would it at the same time also be a helix? See for yourself.
You will see our new design profile in all we do onwards – in our e-mail communication, our printed material and literature, our promotional stands and last but not least as the red thread throughout our new website.
New website – marinebiochem.com
Our new website is now officially launched and we are eager to learn your comments. For us it is a major milestone achieved and we so much wish we would have had it much sooner but fortunately our customers kept us very busy so we never quite got there. Finally we are ready to step out into the open and we will strive to make it a dynamic source for information on our activities and products as well as a site for our customer interactions. You will be able to direct your inquiries and comments to us in the contact section and you will be able to select between a general inquiry, an order inquiry and an applicaton inquiry. These will be addressing the relevant persons directly so you should get as direct a reply as possible.
There is much more to come – bear with us and keep looking for news.
New e-mail addresses
Along with the introduction of the website we are launching new e-mail addresses along with the lines laid down in the url for the website. You may still direct mails to us on the old xxx.yyy@biotec.no but we will be replying you from our new addresses, so no mails should be lost in the transition. The guiding principle for the new e-mail addresses is initials@marinebiochem.com. Below you will find a complete overview of the e-mail addresses and telephone numbers of the team.
New scalable organization
I have been working with the team to define a new organization that would enable us to accommodate the growth over the years to come. We have defined the key players in the management team and believe we have laid down the core for the future development allowing us to add more staff on each function. With the expansion of the team we have been able to develop an organization with well defined roles for each member – a need that became obvious when growing sales challenged our organization. At the same time we have been able to create new positions with a great potential for personal development – both at scientific and managerial level and positions where our accumulated knowledge is retained and strengthened via a more logical distribution of roles.
You will observe the establishment of three new functions – Application Development, Production & QA/QC and product management – which are going to be extremely important for our successful development. The application development department will, headed by Morten Elde, be the primary interfase between our own technical activities and the customers. Morten Elde will in his new role be deeply involved in our sales and promotional activities as well as responding to customer inquiries and translating the use of our new products into useful customer applications. The production and QA/QC department will in the experienced hands of Dag Rune Gjellesvik add the necessary focus on a continuous improvement of our production quality and documentation, and lastly Gerd Nilsen will be heading the Product Management department as a key player in developing our market and sales strategies along with playing an important role in our business development activities.
Research & Development will be headed by Olav Lanes who will lead our constant search for new product candidates as well as serve as our primary interactor with our partners at the University of Tromsø. I will personally be primarily responsible for business development activities with the main focus on establishment of new customer relations, next to my role as managing director.
From January 2010 we have added another 3 employees so we by now account for a staff of 8 plus additional administrative resources from our mother corporation an increase from 4 before June 2009.
Below contact coordinates and new roles of the management team in the new organisation.
Olav Lanes, Ph.D.
Head of Research & Development
+47 47 41 42 56
ol@azdev.wpengine.com
Morten Elde, Ph.D.
Head of Application Development
+47 41 40 67 62
me@azdev.wpengine.com
Dag Rune Gjellesvik, Ph.D.
Head of Production and QA/QC
+47 40 45 33 22
drg@azdev.wpengine.com
Gerd Nilsen, Ph.D.
Head of Product Management
+47 45 47 00 77
gn@azdev.wpengine.com
Jan Buch Andersen, Ph.D.
Managing Director
+47 46 74 61 71
jba@azdev.wpengine.com
With this I will end for now and express my sincere hope to see our relations grow in the time to come.
Best regards,
Marine Biochemicals AS
Jan Buch Andersen, Ph.D.
Managing Director