Vortex Biosciences Announces Dr. Adrian Kinkaid as New CEO

Vortex Biosciences, the cancer diagnosis biotechnology business, has announced the appointment of Dr Adrian Kinkaid as its new Chief Executive Officer.

Vortex Biosciences has developed the VTX-1, a best-in-class instrument that isolates and purifies Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs) from blood. These cells can then be used for cancer diagnosis and monitoring, research on drug development, cancer research and development of personalized medicine.

Dr Adrian Kinkaid joins Vortex Biosciences on contract, alongside his other roles as CEO of healthcare diagnostic biotech BioFab Ltd and antibody testing biotech Lumabs BV. A specialist in leading early-stage start-ups, Adrian has led several funding rounds for MIP Diagnostics, a synthetic antibody biotech, where he served as CEO for four years until 2019. He has also secured non-dilutive funding for MIP Diagnostics and BioFab via the prestigious SMART Awards.

Prior to this, he was Chief Commercial Officer for Promexus, a protein biotherapeutics company based on Affimer technology, and Strategic Market Development Leader for Abcam, the leading provider of research antibodies. He has a particular passion for improving patient outcomes and game-changing new technologies, especially in the in vitro diagnostics space.

As CEO, Dr Adrian Kinkaid will be overseeing the operations of Vortex Biosciences across its two sites in San Francisco, US and Cambridge, UK. He will be working closely with the board as well as Dr. Ilian Iliev, the Executive Chairman. Adrian will be using his expertise and experience to help Vortex Biosciences commercialize its medical technologies and grow rapidly in the liquid biopsy market.

On his appointment, Dr Adrian Kinkaid said:

“I am delighted to be joining the Vortex Biosciences team. Vortex is in an unrivalled position with outstanding core technology and a best-in-class platform to provide Circulating Timor Cells (CTCs) with remarkable efficiency and purity. More importantly, Vortex’s VTX-1 platform is providing game-changing opportunities for CTC isolation in the liquid biopsy market.”

Vortex Biosciences Executive Chairman and NetScientific PLC CEO Dr. Ilian Iliev commented:

“We are delighted to welcome Adrian to the team at this critical juncture. We trust Adrian’s experience in commercializing game-changing medical technologies will help execute Vortex’s ambitious plans in the rapidly growing liquid biopsy market. Vortex is now based in two of the world’s greatest biotech clusters – the Bay Area and Cambridge, UK – and is therefore well positioned to exploit the rapid growth in the liquid biopsy market on both sides of the Atlantic.”

Adrian has a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Southampton, centred on novel assay development, and undertook a post-doctoral position with the Institute of Cancer Research, London. His industrial experience started with agrochemical and pharmaceutical discovery where he developed a range of different biochemical and cell-based assays mainly for high throughput screening applications.

Adrian was also a Founding Member of European Laboratory Research and Innovation Group, a not-for-profit organization that holds conferences and events for thought leadership in the life science and drug discovery communities. He served two terms as Chairman, during which time he established the flagship Drug Discovery event, which is now the leading conference of its kind in Europe.