Panbio appoints new CEO to drive expansion

Diagnostics company Panbio has reached into the senior ranks of DuPont for a growth-oriented chief executive officer to oversee its next period of planned expansion.

It has appointed Jim Porter, former president and CEO of DuPont subsidiary Qualicon, to take over Panbio's reins in February from retiring CEO Mel Bridges.

The Brisbane biotech, whose annual revenues of $17.1 million are founded primarily on diagnostic tests for infectious diseases such as dengue fever, is aiming for revenues of $100 million by 2010.

It is no stranger to growth with revenues that have posted an average annual increase of 40 per cent over the past 14 years.

At Qualicon, Porter presided over annual sales growth of more than 60 per cent and trebled the company's market share.

Significantly, Qualicon focused on DNA-based diagnostics, a technology platform that Panbio is adding to its repertoire with company sources claiming its first DNA-based tests will be announced within a month.

Besides holding a number of US positions with DuPont, Porter was also based in Tokyo as part of an Asia Pacific leadership team that doubled the business giant's regional revenues during the 1990s.

That gives him experience in both Panbio's key markets of the US and Asia.

Meanwhile Bridges, who stepped up into the CEO's job in 1998 from the head sales and marketing post, will remain on Panbio's board as non-executive director. He holds a 10 per cent stake in the company.

Panbio's portfolio of test technologies includes such biochemical mainstays as enzyme linked immuno assay (ELISA) testing, but it is expanding into rapid action tests for quicker-acting diseases which can't wait several days for test results, and also into DNA testing.