The Story
We started in 2002. (Yawn) I know most people skip over this part of a website! It gives an overview to where AME Bioscience is today.
AME Bioscience, based in Tønsberg, Norway with an office in the UK, started selling, servicing and supporting Applied Biosystems instruments. All of them, which included DNA & Protein sequencers and synthesizers as well as PCR and Real Time PCR systems. In addition we sold and serviced Sciex mass spectrometers.
We developed commercial partnerships with labs to provide neonatal testing of new borns using mass spec. At the time this was an exciting application of mass spec which could have a positive impact for many new borns if they had access to the analysis.
We sold, rented, leased a lot of systems. Our best year included the sale of more than 40 ABI 3730xl genetic analysers. At one point most of the larger commercial DNA sequencing service companies in Europe had sequencers from us.
I (Alister Ewing) started the company. I had worked for Applied Biosystems for 13 years then managed a start up, Upstate Discovery which provided Kinase assays which we branded as KinaseProfiler™ to the pharma industry. I was fortunate enough to work with some exceptional people who made that business a success.
At AME Bioscience I was joined in Europe by 4 other ex Applied Biosystems colleagues, who were and still are geniuses in what they did. Three have retired and one has developed a very good regional consulting business. We partnered with a company in the USA where we essentially worked Worldwide as one company. We had talented people who had previously worked in manufacturing and QC at Applied Biosystems in Foster City, USA. Everything we sold was not just checked, but it was re-manufactured and quality controlled. No other company out-with the manufacturer had that capability. No wonder the manufacturer used any means possible to obstruct us. I 'retired' in 2015 knowing I was fortunate to be able to do that. Happy that we had helped so many scientists and small companies with limited funding have access to the technology that would get them results faster than they anticipated to either publish papers or grow their emerging company.
Retirement was not a good choice! I kept the AME Bioscience website live. Although there was no marketing, people remembered the company. I had several requests for instruments or whether I knew of companies developing various technologies. I would source instruments and arrange independent service to support these, simply as an instrument broker. Move on to late 2018 into 2019 and small companies were asking for input on sales and marketing, on market development, on sourcing complimentary technologies. How to find and manage Distributor sales partners. The company and myself still had connections to the life science market and slowly I took on some small 'consultancy' projects.
Today AME Bioscience is still contacted to source instruments, which I am happy to do. Although I mostly put buyers in contact with sellers I know or that have previously been recommended to me. These requests have grown, the connections I made had value so I set up a 'Value Fee' charge for this. It is optional and people could have ignored it. They never did that. Thank you.
Through providing consultancy such as helping companies find distributors, most of them, when they had a distributor network didn't manage it and became frustrated at the lack of what they thought would be instant sales. In response I set up small training courses.
During the covid pandemic these evolved into online courses which can still be provided.
In addition my interest has been finding new companies. At AME Bioscience we introduced several companies which were new and emerging onto the Nordic market. Companies such as Nanostring, Fluidigm, ProteinSimple, Seegene, Lab901, OpGen, Integenx to name a few. Most of those have grown significantly or been acquired. I keep looking for new companies, not to represent them, but to try and make people aware of them if they have something that looks like it could benefit some of the customers I have worked with. That process has developed with video interviews, which are recorded and intended to be made available on YouTube, LinkedIn and on our website. (We left Facebook disagreeing with their willingness to promote racist and sectarian content)
Also our newsletters are used to highlight new or alternative companies and products.
As AME Bioscience transforms I have started to focus on matching independent resources for sales, support and business development with companies that want to expand in to markets they have previously has no direct or Distributor presence. Also for companies who have products in their portfolio that get limited attention from their existing sales force. Independent success orientated sales development resources can add revenues for any company without additional up-front investment.
This is the area of the business that is growing most. I now have a growing database of people I have 'accredited' as being capable to provide the sales and business development services that I manage.
I continue to provide sales & marketing support, coaching and training to small evolving life science companies.
Now with the addition of independent AME Bioscience 'accredited' sales development resources we can help companies big and small achieve increased revenues from the development of sales in new markets and / or a focus on lower priority products in established markets.
Information and resources which will be available online, some free, some based on a 'Value Fee' and others with a fixed price.
Covid 19 has brought a further change. As a trusted provider of technology we were swamped with requests for find real time PCR systems that were unused and available from Applied Biosystems, Roche, BioRad etc. There was a mass movement of companies providing kits. As the second wave develops I am joined by a colleague and we are sourcing products specifically that provide rapid results for PCR based tests. The website has been stripped down to focus on this. The products and companies we are working with are very innovative with products that are helping people get answers faster.
Now in the post pandemic period a lot of molecular testing innovation has been introduced with many new companies established. We are interested in further developing our existing relationships and developing new opportunities with new companies. Stay tuned!