A visionary professor who helped lead the commercialisation of technology used to create Dolly the sheep has joined the board of Belfast start-up PathXL.

Prof Simon Best, who has an established track record as an entrepreneur, was chief executive of Roslin Biomed when it succeeded in the world’s first cloning of an animal.

Prof Best has raised an estimated £170 million for a variety of life science companies in the last 15 years.

Queen’s spin-out

PathXL is a spin-out company from Queen’s University Belfast, which is pioneering the use of web-based solutions for digital pathology, mainly in relation to cancer and for use in education, research and clinical sectors.

Its chief executive, Des Speed, said the company was delighted to welcome someone of Prof Best’s calibre, with his 27years’ experience across several sectors, to its board.

“He has founded several major bio-pharmaceutical and med-tech businesses and gained significant entrepreneurial and senior management experience in raising finance, deal formation and product commercialisation.

“Simon’s expertise will clearly help PathXL grow as a company and progress the delivery of new patented technology and new products that we plan to take to market in a very assertive way,” Mr Speed said.

Exciting proposition

Prof Best believes the spin-out, now based at the Northern Ireland Science Park, is an exciting proposition because it is at “the leading-edge of digital pathology which is a ‘hot’ field whose time has definitely come”.

“The company is poised to speed up the diagnosis and selection of targeted therapies for patients, thereby generating very substantial financial returns to its investors,” Prof Best has predicted.

PathXL recently announced a seven-figure investment, which it said would transform its immediate outlook.