Trans-Atlantic expansion for medical diagnostics tests maker
Abingdon Health, a medical device contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO), has signed a lease to open a commercial office and laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin, USA.
The site will begin operations in October 2024 and is expected to become fully operational in early 2025.
This US footprint is intended to enable York-headquartered Abingdon to provide additional support to its broadening international customer base and be closer to large customers in North America.
The group’s newly incorporated wholly owned subsidiary, Abingdon Health USA Inc, will operate from the University Research Park in Madison, Dane County, Wisconsin.
Dr Chris Hand will move to executive chairman and lead Abingdon’s operations with immediate effect. Chris Yates, CEO, will lead Abingdon’s USA expansion and global commercial activities in the UK, Europe, US and other territories.
Yates said: “I’m looking forward to driving Abingdon’s worldwide commercial activities and, in particular, expanding our customer base in the US, the largest med-tech market globally.
“Our laboratory site in the US will mean we can offer US customers the opportunity to buy their services in the US; this is a first step for Abingdon to provide a broader proposition from within the US market.”
Hand said: “Expansion into the USA is a key step in the group’s growth plans, and I am pleased that Chris Yates has accepted the challenge to lead the establishment of Abingdon’s US base in Madison, WI; oversee our US operations; and manage our global commercial activities.
“We have a strong operational team at Abingdon, and I am pleased to take on an expanded executive role to facilitate Chris Yates’ ability to focus on our US expansion and global sales growth.”
Lisa Johnson, CEO of BioForward Wisconsin, added: “Abingdon Health is a leader in lateral flow diagnostic technology with a unique, end-to-end value proposition for its customers.
“As a publicly-traded UK company with a global presence, their decision to open a US office here in Wisconsin provides yet more evidence of our state’s growing stature in personalized medicine and biohealth technologies.
“We look forward to Abingdon Health complementing and strengthening our biohealth ecosystem, and bringing more economic impact and jobs to Wisconsin.”
The USA is the largest medical device market in the world, comprising over 40% of the global medtech market and containing over 6,500 medtech companies.
Abingdon says it has built a portfolio of US customers across its various service solutions and it believes there is a timely and significant opportunity to expand its US customer base.
The firm also notes a number of potential US customers have requested CDMO services to be delivered/supported from the USA.
It explains this is in part linked to a continued drive towards onshoring in the US, but also a prerequisite for projects that form part of US-based tender awards or qualify for US grant funding.
Abingdon adds it believes the new US site, as well as building the group’s capabilities in the US, will expand the number of possible commercial opportunities available.
About 30% of Abingdon’s revenues in the last financial year were derived from the United States.
