As part of its continuing expansion, ProAxsis Limited, the Belfast-based diagnostics company, is pleased to announce further key appointments within its Northern Ireland team. 

Dr Louise Ryan Murphy joins the company as Head of Business Operations.  Louise brings a wealth of operational experience to ProAxsis, having previously held roles at Abbott Diagnostics, Horizon Discovery and PredictImmune with a focus on IVD medical devices. In her new role, she will be responsible for overseeing all in-house product development and clinical services projects as well as product manufacture and quality assurance activities.

Louise Ryan Murphy, newly appointed Head of Business Operations at ProAxsis, added: “I am delighted to be joining ProAxsis at such an exciting period of expansion and growth for the company.  I have been very impressed with the in-house talent and what they have achieved to date. I look forward to working with the team as we continue to expand and streamline operations, and to contributing significantly to the future success of the company.”

In addition, the company welcomes three new members of its R&D team – Ashleigh Kennedy, who returns to us after four years having previously completed a placement year at ProAxsis, Niall McDonagh and Matthew McCaffrey.  Ashleigh was most recently working at Almac, whilst Niall joins us from Randox.  Matthew also previously completed a placement year with the company and re-joins the company from Queen’s University Belfast.

Dr David Ribeiro, CEO of ProAxsis, commented: “We’re thrilled to have enticed someone of Louise’s calibre and experience to relocate back to Northern Ireland and become part of the World-leading diagnostics community here.  We’re also delighted to further expand our R&D team via the additions of Ashleigh, Niall and Matthew.”

Due to the growing nature of the company, we continue to look for high-quality candidates to join our team.  Any new opportunities will be posted on our website – www.proaxsis.com

About ProAxsis

ProAxsis Limited is a global diagnostics company, based in Northern Ireland, with a specific focus on active protease biomarkers. The company currently commercialises activity-based immunoassays targeting Neutrophil Elastase (NE) and Proteinase 3, as biomarkers of lung infection and inflammation in chronic respiratory diseases such as COPD, cystic fibrosis and bronchiectasis. 

This technology has been translated into a point-of-care test (NEATstik®), to enable ongoing monitoring of active NE levels.  Recently published data has shown that measuring active NE levels using NEATstik® enables identification of patients with airway bacterial infection and those patients at highest risk of suffering pulmonary exacerbations over the subsequent 12 months. 

The company has significantly expanded its product portfolio, via the recent in-licensing of a novel bone health assay from the University of Geneva, and a COVID-19 serology assay from AstraZeneca.

In addition to proteases, the company also has significant expertise in the measurement of other inflammatory biomarkers, including IL-6, IL-8 and TNF-alpha.  Grant-funded R&D funded projects for a variety of targets remain a key area of focus.

Aside from the provision of assays, ProAxsis can offer sample analysis at its purpose-built laboratory facility in Belfast and is currently supporting a number of pharmaceutical company-sponsored Phase I, II and III clinical trials. ProAxsis is a fully owned subsidiary of Netscientific plc, the international life sciences and sustainability technology investment and commercialisation Group.