Culture of innovation wins firm Queen’s Award
A CULTURE of enterprise, initiative and innovation is responsible for a Worcestershire firm winning its latest Queen’s Award for Enterprise.
Paul Walker, managing director of Malvern Instruments, said the recognition bestowed on the firm in this year’s awards was a huge tribute to the whole company.
“I am immensely pleased for the entire Malvern Instruments’ team,” he said, following the announcement of the award.
“Over the years we have nurtured a culture of enterprise, initiative and innovation, encouraging both creativity and technical excellence, where everything we do is focused on meeting the needs of our customers.
“This extends beyond the vital technical product innovation, and everyone has a part to play in delivering the whole product – from administration, sales, training, technical service and high level applications support, right through to ensuring round-the-clock global availability of information across the web.”
He said innovation did not take place in isolation and recognition should go to everyone connected with the firm not just in the UK, but globally.
The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise are the UK’s most prestigious business awards.
Malvern’s award was in recognition of the company’s continuous innovation and development of its market leading Zetasizer Nano systems.
These scientific instruments are used around the world in both university and industrial laboratories to measure extremely small naturally-occurring and manufactured particles.
Researchers at the University of Washington have said information provided by Zetasizer Nano systems has been critical to their development of nanoparticles that can selectively target cancer cells to aid identification.
The Zetasizer Nano is also being used in nanoparticle research that may ultimately lead to the fast screening and early diagnosis of breast cancer, and elsewhere for studying the behaviour of proteins in research related to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
The instruments also play an important role in areas such as water treatment, and in the development and quality control of pharmaceutical and many other industrial and consumer goods.
The award is not the first bestowed on the company. It has previously received: The Queen’s Award for Technology (1977); The Queen’s Award for Export (1981); The Queen’s Award for Export and Technology (1988); and most recently, The Queen’s Award for Enterprise in International Trade (2006).
Malvern Instruments, which has its global headquarters and manufacturing facility located at the town’s Enigma Business Park, also has subsidiary organisations in all major European markets plus North America, China, Korea and Japan, together with a joint venture in India and a global distributor network and applications laboratories around the world.
It employs 430 people worldwide – 190 of whom are in the UK.
