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22 October 2008
Award success for University spin-outs
The University of Sheffield´s spirit of enterprise has been recognised at the prestigious Yorkshire Post Excellence in Business Awards 2008, after two University spin-out companies won awards. Simcyp, a company at the forefront of computer based drug testing won the Innovation of the Year award and Graduates Yorkshire picked up the University Spin-Out accolade, at the awards ceremony in Leeds.
Simcyp, which was founded in 2001 as a spin-out company from the University´s School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, aims to minimise unnecessary drug testing on humans and animals. Simcyp maintains strong academic links and its science team conducts internationally recognised research and development.
Graduates Yorkshire is a dedicated recruitment website for matching employers in Yorkshire with graduate talent from the region´s universities and was formed through the collaboration of the careers services across all Yorkshire´s universities. Formerly a funded project, Graduates Yorkshire re-launched as a social enterprise earlier this year.
Graduates Yorkshire is built upon the success of the original Graduate Link project, which was established at the University of Sheffield in 1996 to provide a recruitment service to meet the growing demand for graduates in small and medium-sized businesses. Staff from the University of Sheffield are still closely involved with the project under its new Graduate Yorkshire title and the Director of the Careers Service at the University of Sheffield, Steve Fish, sits on the Board.
Steve Fish said: "The University of Sheffield Careers Service is delighted that Graduates Yorkshire has won this award. We introduced the Graduates Yorkshire service (originally Graduate Link) in 1996 on behalf of all the universities in the Yorkshire and Humber region so we feel especially proud of the company´s achievements. Given that the company has been operating for under a year, it is great news to hear that its successes have been recognised by this Yorkshire Post award."
Professor Geoff Tucker, Head of the Academic Unit of Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Sheffield, said: "It is with great pride that we acknowledge this recognition of our innovative technology and the progress that Simcyp has made since forming as a spin-out from the University of Sheffield. With guidance from Sheffield University Enterprises Limited we have been able to implement our research interests in pharmacokinetics and provide a platform that is now an essential component of drug development used by twelve of the top fifteen pharmaceutical companies worldwide."
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