25th July 2015 will see Cambridge Research Biochemicals celebrate 35 years of supply of its products and services to eminent research scientists across the globe. Furthermore, Directors Emily Humphrys and Alison White also celebrate 25 years and 30 years respectively at CRB. This anniversary piece also honours CRB’s longest standing customer and world renowned Scientist Professor Jens Rehfeld and highlights some of CRB’s most poignant achievements over the past 35 years.
35 years of Excellence
CRB was founded in 1980 by leading peptide chemists from the Medical Research Council and after being purchased initially by ICI in 1989 and relocated to the North East, ICI demerged and CRB became part of Zeneca (now Astra Zeneca) and then Avecia.
CRB was then bought out by its current management, Directors Emily Humphrys and Alison White in 2000. This year Alison and Emily celebrate milestone anniversaries of 30 yrs and 25 years respectively at CRB, which is now the world’s second-oldest peptide manufacturer. CRB enjoys long standing relations with the world’s top ten pharmaceutical companies as well as globally-famed research institutes and Biotechnology Companies.
In January 2014, a £1M investment programme, facilitated CRB’s relocation to a 10,000sq ft state-of-the-art premises ‘The Gardner Ratcliffe Building‘ complete with a brand new cell culture suite, laboratory space and offices. As a result, more staff were employed meaning an improved service for our customers.
CRB welcomed customers and collaborators to the building in style –holding a lavish opening ceremony which included a ribbon cutting by long-standing CRB customer and the Director of the CIMR, Professor Gillian Griffiths who also gave a welcome talk, a tour of the new facility, laboratory demonstrations and a delightful afternoon tea at Crathorne Hall. CRB also honoured highly esteemed collaborators Joseph P. Gardner (Pfizer) and Steven Ratcliffe (GSK), who had the antibody and peptide suites respectively named after them.
Over the years, in addition to CRB’s recent expansion and relocation, other achievements have been enjoyed including five years of preferred supplier status to the Medical Research Council in 2015, involvement as a peptide partner in BIOSCENT, the addition of new and exciting services including Fluorescent dye and Europium labelling; peptide-PNA and peptide-PMO conjugation and generation of Monoclonal antibodies in-house using the newly built cell-culture suite.