Our Story
We want to make a difference to lives, to improve them by harnessing our technology in order to help accelerate research and lower costs in the development of therapeutic drugs, vaccines and diagnostics.
It all started at the John Innes Centre from research being conducted by Prof. George Lomonossoff and Dr Frank Sainsbury. It soon developed into a viable process for producing useful proteins and is today Leaf Expression Systems, a growing company with the capability of producing products for the life sciences and agri industries.
Timeline
2007 - 2012
Funded by BBSRC, John Innes Centre researchers Professor George Lomonossoff and Dr Frank Sainsbury develop Hypertrans®, a plant-based system for producing useful proteins. 2008 Hypertrans®, research is published in the journal Plant Physiology. 2009 A user-friendly Hypertrans® vector system, developed by Professor George Lomonosoff, Dr Frank Sainsbury and Dr Eva Thuenamann, is launched. 2012 Professor George Lomonosoff wins the BBSRC innovator of the year award for his work with Dr Frank Sainsbury on Hypertrans®
2015
Funding for Leaf Expression Systems secured through BBSRC
2016 - June
Building work on the Leaf Expression Systems facility commences
2016 - August
Appointment of Dr Steven Powell as Executive Director and Phil Cater as Operations Director
2017
Leaf Expression Systems facility officially opened by Science Minister Jo Johnson MP. Grants are awarded by SBRI , Horizon 2020 and UKVRDN
2018
Simon Saxby appointed as CEO Signed first commercial contracts
2019
Leaf Expression Systems launch first line of Hypertrans®products research products online. Plant Bioscience Ltd transfers control of Hypertrans®
2019 - November
Leaf Expression Systems win the award for Breaking Boundaries at the Norfolk Business Awards