SAFC, the custom manufacturing and services business unit of Sigma-Aldrich, has appointed Archie Cullen as President of BioReliance.
BioReliance is SAFC’s biologics and early development services business, formed following the acquisition of BioReliance in January 2012.
Cullen replaces Charles Harwood, who is retiring.
In his previous position as Vice President of SAFC, Cullen played a significant role in the acquisition of BioReliance, which enables SAFC to provide testing services and solutions to complement its broad product offering and strong technology platforms.
‘Being able to go to market with our product offerings complemented by an integrated testing platform is expected to create a great opportunity for SAFC to enable new product and service solutions to our customers,’ said Cullen. ‘Right now, each business is benefiting from its ability to introduce and reintroduce each other to the respective customer bases. My role will be to support a go-to-market approach with a coordinated offering from raw materials to testing. That's what our larger customers have been requesting.’
Gilles Cottier, President of SAFC, added: ‘As individual business units, SAFC and BioReliance have each built industry leading offerings and positive reputations. As an integrated business unit, we see great value in the fact that we can coordinate strengths to provide a comprehensive solution to our customers.
‘In order to ensure we maximise this value at the customer level, we needed to appoint someone who not only understands SAFC and BioReliance but, more importantly, someone who is intimate with the customers and their requirements. We are fortunate enough to have that in Archie.’
Cullen has a broad range of global experience in the biopharma sector, including at Life Technologies and JRH Biosciences.
Following the acquisition in 2005 by Sigma-Aldrich, Cullen became Vice President of Commercial and Technical Operations for SAFC's biosciences business unit where he was responsible for global sales, marketing, and research and development functions.
In 2009, Cullen was promoted to Vice President of Sales for SAFC where he headed up strategic accounts globally. Cullen has a BSc from the University of Glasgow and an MBA from Open University.
Cottier said: ‘While we are excited about the appointment of Archie, I would also like to recognise and thank Charlie Harwood on behalf of all of us here at Sigma-Aldrich. Under his guidance BioReliance established a clear leadership position in providing critical services to the biopharma industry. Over the past year he has expertly undertaken the significant transition of the BioReliance team into SAFC. We wish him well.’
