Rich List 2012: =No.41 - Jo Bradwell (£125m)
In November, Prof Jo Bradwell sold the majority of the shares in the medical diagnostics company which he founded to private investment group Nordic Capital. The company – The Binding Site Ltd – is one of the Midlands most successful companies. Prof Bradwell retains a small shareholding and remains on the board.
The value of the sale is undisclosed, but it will have been a considerable sum. In 2009, The Binding Site’s auto-immune operation was sold to the Werfen Group for £80 million.
Prof Bradwell, 66, is a professor of medicine at Birmingham University where The Binding Site leases laboratories and does much of its research. Its headquarters, employing 350, people is in Calthorpe Road, Edgbaston. It has offices and distributors all over the globe, with a major operation in San Diego, USA.
The Binding Site was founded by Prof Bradwell in 1983, with a range of clinical research products. It has continued to grow and expand, launching new, high-value, knowledge-based products and opening new offices.
It traces its roots back to Birmingham University’s Medical School where a group of researchers first started looking for innovative ways to produce antibodies.
