Logical Biological is committed to do what we can to reduce our environmental impact and improve our local environment. With this core value in mind some of our team recently enjoyed a blustery day in Sandwich and Pegwell Bay National Nature Reserve volunteering for the Kent Wildlife Trust.

 

Covering 615-hectares (1,520-acres), Sandwich and Pegwell Bay is the Kent Wildlife Trusts largest site and is important for breeding, migrating, and wintering birds all year round. It has rich feeding grounds which are a vital stop for migrating birds, some of which cover thousands of miles and come all the way from places like Canada, Russia, and Africa. The area is also home to many internationally important rare plants and animals, such as lizard orchids and sand lizards.

 

Caption: Sea-buckthorn dominate the dunes above Pegwell bay

 

Sea-buckthorn, as we discovered, is a spiny, thicket-forming shrub that grows well in the sand dunes. In-fact it grows so well that it has taken over too much of the reserve and needed cutting back and managing. That is where our team of volunteers came in! Our team spent the day cutting back the shrub and litter picking the cleared area, making it ready for sand lizard to bask in the summer sun and highland cattle to graze.

Caption: Logical Biologicals team of volunteers

 

With the ideal ratio of shrub to dunes being 25:75%, there’s still a way to go, but we definitely made an impact and hope that we played a part in ensuring the vast biodiversity of the area.

Caption: Rubbish and wayward golf balls collected (there’s an adjacent championship links golf course!)

 

In the four years since it was founded, Logical Biological has established itself as a go-to company for diagnostic test developers, requiring healthy and diseased human biological material such as serum, plasma, swabs, and saliva, directly from donor centres and blood banks around the world.

 

Founder and managing director, James Steggles, set up the business after being persuaded by his family and friends to go it alone and put his years of industry experience to work.

 

With the need to operate from Containment Level 2 laboratory space, James identified the life science park: Discovery Park in the southeast of the UK as the home for his start-up company, Logical Biological.

 

Speaking from his office in Building 500, James said: “Discovery Park offered the space and the all-important containment facilities, and a welcoming approach that made it easy for us to choose to move here.

James Steggles, Founder and Managing Director, Logical Biological

James Steggles, Founder and Managing Director, Logical Biological

 

“Since establishing the company at Discovery Park we’ve grown quickly and already moved to bigger offices and labs twice, with another move onsite on the horizon.”

 

The company’s expertise has helped it establish a global network of partners to help source the human biological material needed by companies involved in the development of disease diagnosis testing.

 

Logical Biological’s aspiration is to be the company of choice for test developers to partner with their 12-strong team. A further three people are expected to join by the end of the year, maintaining it as one of the UK’s fastest growing companies.

 

James, who has a PhD in Biochemistry and years of experience in the industry, felt that there was an opportunity to establish a business that offered integrity, reliability, and quality assurance.

 

“The development of high-quality tests, whether for allergies, auto-immune diseases, cancer, cardiology or infectious diseases, require reliable information gathered from high-quality human material. My experience while working in the industry was that the supply-chain too often failed. I knew that with the right attention to detail, we could do much better,” added James.

 

His confidence has been well-founded. The company now provides human biomaterial to many globally recognised names and often with multiple projects for each ongoing at any one time. Logical Biological’s approach and expertise is being put to good use by test developers involved in a wide range of clinical areas.

 

James added: “Covid-19 shone a light on the value of diagnostic tests and how they can support clinicians across many fields, which has stimulated demand for the materials we are perfectly placed to source and supply.

 

“Repeat business, referrals from existing customers and to potential new ones, has driven our growth. Seeing our work, which is at the start of the development of new tests, come to fruition with the tests being launched into the market, gives all of the team huge satisfaction, and drives us to be even better.”

 

Logical Biological has benefited from the talent pool that exists in Kent, and specifically in the Discovery Park area.

 

“The majority of the CVs we receive from potential team members inevitably mention Pfizer which demonstrates the quality of the skills on offer, and the local universities are delivering science graduates to the area.

 

“We’ve also benefitted from the community of like-minded companies here with shared values, with relationships nurtured by the team on site, and we have developed a strong partnership with at least one other firm at Discovery Park.”

 

Logical Biological’s offices, with its testing and write-up space, put the team in amongst a community of high-growth companies, many of whom have started and flourished at Discovery Park.

 

James concluded: “Being among business owners and scientists who are open to collaborate here means that Discovery Park is a great environment in which to grow.

 

“I am delighted about how great the last four years have turned out. Our success has been built on doing things right through integrity and reliability and an extreme commitment to our customers.”

 

The team has also benefitted from the work-life balance offered by Discovery Park and living in Kent. James frequently commutes by train from Whitstable to Ramsgate and then cycles to work through Pegwell Bay nature reserve, with the sea air getting the day off to a great start.

 

 

Logical Biological were delighted to exhibit for the first time at MEDICA, in Dusseldorf, Germany from 14 – 17 November 2022.

MEDICA – Leading International Trade Fair

MEDICA 2022 Infographic

MEDICA is one of the largest international events for the IVD Diagnostic industry and Logical Biological was one of over 5,000 exhibitors from over 70 countries . Logical Biological was pleased to see that visitor numbers were up from 2021 to more than 81,000 visitors, a significant increase from the 46,000 visitors that attended in 2021. In fact, MEDICA felt almost back to its pre-Covid self with the share of international visitors totalling 75 percent. European countries topped the visitor numbers, followed by South Korea and the USA. India and North African countries were also represented in large numbers. Many visitors noted that after the long pandemic break, they were happy to be able to talk to exhibitors again.

Logical Biological at MEDICA 2022

For Logical Biological, this was the first time exhibiting at MEDICA. Exhibiting gave us the opportunity to increase awareness within the industry of who Logical Biological are and how we can support and empower IVD manufacturers to develop high performance assays and associated calibrator and control material.

Thanks to some bold back-lit graphics we were a noticeable presence in the UK Gambica area of Hall 1, which enabled us to have many conversations with passing visitors, who we look forward to building working relationships with. Our team of three enjoyed over 30 pre-arranged meetings with customers and suppliers, and many more spontaneous ones. Better still, thanks to the support of Gambica we were able to have 2 meetings simultaneously by utilising the shared meeting area that Gambica offers.

MEDICA is always good way to get an overview of the market, to network and to see what the other companies are doing and where the trends are, this year was no exception. We look forward to attending more trade shows this year and further building the relationships we started at MEDICA.

 

Logical Biological Products

Logical Biological specialises in provision of human biospecimens, such as serum, plasma, swabs and saliva, all of which are essential components used in IVD tests, their development, calibration and quality control. 

Date of the next MEDICA in Düsseldorf: 13 –16 November 2023

Logical Biological is delighted to announce the appointment of Stephane Argivier as Non-Executive Director and Board member. Stephane has been involved in IVD and Life Science for the past 23 years, during most of which he has held leadership and executive positions, and built a successful track record of delivering fast and sustained growth with entities ranging from start-ups to multinationals.

Stephane is currently CEO and Board member of MIP Diagnostics, a rapidly growing company with a unique technology expanding the scope of affinity reagent applications & functionalities. Stephane was previously Managing Director at SCIPAC Ltd, a multi-business awards winning company, where he led a successful divestment of the company to the BBI Group on behalf of its shareholders. Stephane stayed with the organisation in various Executive roles for a further 9 years to enable a successful integration to what became BBI Solutions and to set-up a number of new business units, several of which have now reached a significant size. Stephane holds a Masters degree in Business and a degree in Applied Biology.

The appointment comes at a time when Logical Biological has established a strong market position as an ethical, quality focused and reliable source of best-in-industry human biological materials and is now preparing for the next stage of its journey. Dr James Steggles, Managing Director at Logical Biological said, “I am very pleased to welcome Stephane Argivier to the board of Logical Biological. Stephane’s experience in critical IVD reagents, especially within the clinical specimen market, will be extremely valuable as we continue to expand our business operations. We are delighted that Stephane will be joining our board and we look forward to working with him as we continue to build scale and success at Logical Biological”.

Stephane Argivier commented, “I am delighted to be joining Logical Biological at this pivotal time in its business cycle. I am truly impressed with the progress the company has made over the past few years and excited about its future.”

Logical Biological has gained ISO 9001:2015 certification. We have always operated a Quality Management System based on the ISO 9001 system, and now we have the certificate to prove we are fully ISO 9001 compliant. This emphasises our commitment to Quality processes and products.

Logical Biological specialises in provision of human biospecimens.

 

Here at Logical Biological we care about reducing our environmental impact. We are lucky to work in a rural location and get to see lots of wildlife around our HQ at Discovery Park. A few days ago, we were able to put our environmentally conscious aims into practice when we saved a Green Woodpecker. We noticed the beautiful bird, caught upside down with its legs tangled in synthetic nesting material high up on the outside of the building.

 

The trapped woodpecker

 

We at Logical Biological will not stand idly by whilst a woodpecker is in distress, so we sprang into action and… called Discovery Park reception! Some heroes arrived with a ladder to retrieve the woodpecker, whilst Logical Biological provided the crucial pair of scissors required in the untangling process.

 

Untangling the woodpecker

 

Although our levels of customer service are second to none, we are not expecting to win awards for our wildlife photography any time soon! However, here is a picture so you can see what a Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis) looks like when it is not being saved by the team at Logical Biological.

 

The European Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis)

 

 

As we move into 2020, one thing we’d like to do at Logical Biological is find a greener way of dealing with polystyrene box waste. The material has fantastic properties making it ideal for use in shipping biological reagents around the world. It is incredibly lightweight, a great insulator and it can withstand some knocking around, so it is no surprise that our industry uses so much of it. The downside is that most EPS boxes are treated as single-use and are destined for landfill or incineration. How can we get rid of them in a way that minimises environmental impact? We’d love to know how people would feel about receiving goods in re-used EPS boxes where it is safe to do so. Any other suggestions on this topic are very welcome! You can contact us on infoATlogicalbiological.com or follow this link to complete the web form.

Logical Biological, December 2019

Our Managing Director, James Steggles, will be attending the Medica conference in Dusseldorf on November 18th, 19th and 20th. We’d love to discuss how we can help you achieve your project goals – contact us at info@logicalbiological.com to arrange a meeting.

Our Managing Director James Steggles took time out at the recent AACC conference to join up with Sona Nanotech (experts in colloidal gold for Lateral Flow / Rapid Tests) to discuss human patient materials, reagents for IVD immunoassays and more! Tune in here:

https://anchor.fm/sonananotech

 

Logical Biological has added Chagas antibody positive plasma to its range having received clearance from the UK government Health & Safety Executive to handle human biological material containing Trypanosoma cruzi, which is the causative agent of Chagas Disease. T. cruzi is a Hazard Group 3 pathogen according to “The Approved List of Biological Reagents”. Hazard Group 3 is defined as follows: “Can cause severe human disease and may be a serious hazard to employees; it may spread to the community, but there is usually effective prophylaxis or treatment available.”

As part of this process, the UK government has reviewed Logical Biological’s key risk assessments and standard operating procedures. Logical Biological has previously received clearance to handle human biological material infected with other Hazard Group 3 organisms such as HIV, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, Malaria (Plasmodium falciparum) and Tapeworm (Taenia solium).

You can see the full list of infectious disease materials offered by Logical Biological here.

Logical Biological has received clearance from the UK government Health & Safety Executive to handle human biological material containing Trypanosoma cruzi, which is the causative agent of Chagas Disease. T. cruzi is a Hazard Group 3 pathogen according to “The Approved List of Biological Reagents”. Hazard Group 3 is defined as follows: “Can cause severe human disease and may be a serious hazard to employees; it may spread to the community, but there is usually effective prophylaxis or treatment available.”

As part of this process, the UK government has reviewed Logical Biological’s key risk assessments and standard operating procedures. Logical Biological has previously received clearance to handle human biological material infected with other Hazard Group 3 organisms such as HIV, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, Malaria (Plasmodium falciparum) and Tapeworm (Taenia solium).

You can see the full list of infectious disease patient material offered by Logical Biological here. Please contact us for further information on any of our plasma/serum, antigen and monoclonal antibody products for IVD.