Horizon Discovery CEO Darrin Disley wins Executive of the Year award at SCRIP Awards 2014

The SCRIP Awards, now in its 10th year, is among the most prestigious in the calendar for the life sciences industry. The Executive of the Year Award acknowledges excellence in the leadership of large and small pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

Dr Disley has spearheaded the transformation of Horizon from start-up to one of the world’s leaders in the creation of tools for personalized medicine. From the Company’s launch in 2007 through 2013 he raised over £20 million in funding and defined the business model of building a company committed to accelerating the discovery of targeted personalized medicines, enabling the delivery of the right drugs to the right patient. Under his leadership, Horizon has gone from strength to strength, generating revenue growth on a compound basis of 126% in the six years to 2013. Further, he oversaw the listing of Horizon on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market, generating £69 million in funding, nearly three times the original fund-raising goal, supporting the Company through its next phase of growth. Since the IPO he has overseen two M&A transactions including the combination screening services business CombinatoRx based in Cambridge, Massachusetts and the world-leading in vivo gene-editing business SAGE Labs based in St Louis, Missouri and Boyertown, Pennsylvania.

Since the float, Darrin has continued to drive the business with targeted acquisitions into fast-growing areas of the personalized medicines space and by expanding the suite of products and services available to customers, bolstering Horizon’s intellectual property through licensing agreements, and delivering high-value contracts with world-leading life sciences companies.

Darrin’s entrepreneurialism and enthusiasm for life sciences continues outside of his role at Horizon, where he helps to support start-up ventures through fund-raising and mentoring, and through his passionate support of the UK Life Sciences sector.

Dr Disley commented: “I am thrilled to have been given this award and to have been recognized by peers in this industry. This is a testament to the work of all my colleagues at Horizon over the year, during which we have been through a flotation, two major acquisitions and a series of key licensing deals and contract wins which are driving this business forward, and it is an honour to be heading such a dynamic company.”

 
About Horizon Discovery

Horizon (LSE: HZD) is a revenue-generating life science company supplying research tools to organizations engaged in genomics research and the development of personalized medicines. Horizon has a diverse and international customer base approaching 1,000 organizations across nearly 50 countries, including major pharmaceutical, biotechnology and diagnostic companies as well as leading academic research centers. The Company supplies its products and services into multiple markets, estimated to total in excess of £29 billion by 2015.

Horizon’s core capabilities are built around its proprietary translational genomics platform, GENESIS™, a high-precision and flexible suite of gene editing tools able to alter almost any endogenous gene sequence of human or mammalian cell-lines. Horizon offers almost 2,200 products, almost all of which are based on the application of GENESIS™ to generate cell lines that accurately model the disease-causing mutations found in genetically based diseases. These ‘patients-in-a-test-tube’ are being used by customers to identify the effect of individual or compound genetic mutations on drug activity, patient responsiveness, and resistance, which may lead to the successful prediction of which patient sub-groups will respond to currently available and future drug treatments.  

In addition, Horizon provides GENASSIST™ CRISPR and rAAV gene editing tools, custom cell line generation services for research and bioproduction applications, quantitative molecular reference standards, in vivo disease models, contract research and custom screening services, custom shRNA development services and off-the-shelf validated shRNA (through Horizon’s partner Sirion), and haploid cell lines (through Horizon’s partner Haplogen).  These latter partnerships provide Horizon with almost 11,000 further products for our customers.

Horizon is headquartered in Cambridge, UK, and is listed on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market under the ticker “HZD”, for further information please visit: www.horizondiscovery.com

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For further information from Horizon Discovery Group Plc, please contact:

Consilium Strategic Communications (Financial Media and Investor Relations)
Amber Bielecka / Mary-Jane Elliott / Jessica Hodgson / Matthew Neal
Tel: +44 (0) 20 3709 5701
Email: horizon@consilium-comms.com

Zyme Communications (Trade and Regional Media)
Katie Odgaard
Tel: +44 (0)7787 502 947
Email: katie.odgaard@zymecommunications.com
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