Sigma-Aldrich Announces Strategic Collaboration with UC San Francisco's Catalyst Program to Accelerate Commercialization of Innovative Research Tools
[Official Press Release]
St. Louis – October 27, 2015 – Sigma-Aldrich Corporation (NASDAQ: SIAL), a leading Life Science and Technology Company, announced today it has signed an agreement with UC San Francisco’s (UCSF) Catalyst Program to support its research efforts. Under the agreement, a Sigma-Aldrich representative will participate in reviewing and consulting for projects in the Catalyst Awards program, which funds UCSF scientists who wish to move their translational research into product development.
The goal of the alliance is to foster the exchange of scientific and business ideas between UCSF and Sigma-Aldrich research and business leaders, delivering transformative value for Sigma-Aldrich, its partners and customers. As part the involvement in the UCSF Catalyst Award review panel, Sigma-Aldrich is expected to provide technical insight and market guidance to enable rapid translation into useful research tools and reagents. This will offer UCSF the support to focus on research and development in pursuit of innovative new technologies and sustainable solutions.
“We are excited to enter into this strategic collaboration with a world-leading research organization such as UC San Francisco,” said Sean Muthian, Ph.D., Director of Strategic Marketing at Sigma-Aldrich. “We hope that Sigma-Aldrich’s partnership with the UCSF Catalyst Program will make advanced technologies readily available to translational researchers and speed the development of therapies to improve the quality of life. In addition, our commitment to standardizing the manufacture, delivery and use of these tools may help address some of the challenges of reproducibility with home-brewed research materials.”
“This collaboration marks an important step in cultivating critical industry-academic partnerships,” said June Lee, M.D., Director of the UCSF Catalyst Program. “Sigma-Aldrich has deep expertise and industry-leading capabilities that are complementary to the scientific work at UCSF, and we look forward to partnering with Sigma-Aldrich to further support the broader mandate of the organization and the Catalyst Awards, to accelerate research that will ultimately lead to improved human health.”
The Catalyst Awards Program solicits applications from UCSF investigators with compelling translational research findings who wish to move beyond the research bench and into product development. It includes four different tracks of focus, including therapeutics, diagnostics, devices and digital health. Applications are reviewed by a panel of expert advisors who have specialized experience related to product development and commercialization.
The alliance with the UCSF Catalyst Program is part of Sigma-Aldrich’s continued commitment to provide scientists with the tools and support that will enable and enhance life science discovery. Sigma-Aldrich has also established agreements with The Scripps Research Institute and VIB to accelerate the commercialization of novel translational tools. These partnerships are at the core of Sigma-Aldrich’s mission to supply researchers with the products, resources and support they need for their translational research while addressing industry-wide reproducibility concerns.
For more information on Sigma-Aldrich’s translational research initiative, visit www.sigma-aldrich.com/translational.
Cautionary Statement: The foregoing release contains forward-looking statements that can be identified by terminology such as "will allow,” “will provide,” “is expected,” “hoped,” or similar expressions, or by expressed or implied discussions regarding potential future revenues from products derived there from. You should not place undue reliance on these statements. Such forward-looking statements reflect the current views of management regarding future events, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. There can be no guarantee that this or any other joint venture will assist the Company to achieve any particular levels of revenue in the future. In particular, management's expectations regarding this joint venture could be affected by, among other things, the Company's ability to obtain or maintain patent or other proprietary intellectual property protection; competition in general; government, industry and general public pricing pressures; the impact that the foregoing factors could have on the values attributed to the Company's assets and liabilities as recorded in its consolidated balance sheet, and other risks and factors referred to in Sigma-Aldrich's current Form 10-K on file with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those anticipated, believed, estimated or expected. Sigma-Aldrich is providing the information in this press release as of this date and does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
About Sigma-Aldrich: Sigma-Aldrich, a leading Life Science and Technology company focused on enhancing human health and safety, manufactures and distributes 250,000 chemicals, biochemicals and other essential products to more than 1.4 million customers globally in research and applied labs as well as in industrial and commercial markets. With three distinct business units - Research, Applied and SAFC Commercial - Sigma-Aldrich is committed to enabling science to improve the quality of life. The Company operates in 37 countries, has approximately 9,700 employees worldwide and had sales of $2.79 billion in 2014. For more information about Sigma-Aldrich, please visit its website at www.sigma-aldrich.com.
Sigma-Aldrich is a trademark of Sigma-Aldrich Co, LLC registered in the US and other countries.