Bring on the testing times

"It is a really exciting time to be taking over the company," he said in a recent interview at Axis-Shield's Scottish offices in Dundee.

Although hit by repeated delays during development, Axis-Shield's Afinion device has now been on the market for nearly a year. The machine quickly carries out tests to diagnose a variety of conditions, and is designed for use at the "point of care" at which patients receive treatment, such as clinics, GPs' offices and the hospital bedside.

Constrained by financial regulations in the run-up to releasing Axis-Shield's results, Gilham avoids being drawn on exactly how successful Afinion could become. However, he notes that PoC is one of the most rapidly expanding areas in all of the $30bn (£15.1bn) global diagnostics sector, with growth rates roughly four times higher than that of the market as a whole.

Although Axis-Shield sells virtually none of its PoC products into the US at the moment, Gilham is targeting Afinion squarely at this lucrative market.

"I think our number-one challenge really is to get the most out of the asset we have developed," he said. "It will be a big, big part of the company, there is no doubt.

"On the other side, what we do here in the (Dundee) laboratory business is very attractive as well, and we intend to keep developing new markers."

In Europe, Afinion is currently sold with CRP tests to detect whether an infection is viral or bacterial; kits to measure HbA1c for monitoring diabetes; and an ACR test to measure kidney function in diabetics. Machines in the US have only been sold with the HbA1c kit, although ACR will be added following approval for that test by US regulators a few weeks ago.

Axis-Shield expects to finish development of a fourth Afinion assay - which will detect blood clotting factor levels (PT) in patients taking blood-thinning medications - by the end of this year. This is just the tip of the iceberg, however, as a single Afinion machine could run tests for dozens of different conditions.

"We can put our own tests on to it, and we can do collaborations with other people to put their tests on it," Gilham said. "We have to see how it goes, but I think we have a good story.

"I am looking forward to (presenting the results). We have got a good shareholder base, and we have a lot of good long-term investors who understand what we are all about."

Those relationships were tested in 2006, when repeated delays in the development of Afinion raised fears about the soaring levels of spending at Axis-Shield. The company would eventually invest about £20m on research and development of the product.

In a testament to the company's financial strength, Gilham points out that Axis-Shield absorbed the cost of those delays without ever returning to the market to raise fresh cash: "We have done all of this stuff off of our own dollar."

With Afinion's development now completed, Axis-Shield is moving into a new stage of its evolution as a company, and the increased focus on sales and marketing is one of the main reasons Gilham was appointed to take over from former chief executive Svein Lien. Lien stepped down at the end of 2007 after nearly eight years with Axis Biochemicals - the Norwegian firm that merged with Scottish-based Shield Diagnostics in 1999 - and a further seven years at the enlarged Axis-Shield.

"We have passed that (spending and development) phase, and we are into a new phase," Gilham said. "It really doesn't hurt to have a fresh pair of eyes on that."

With a degree in zoology from the University of Wales followed by a doctorate from the University of Bath in 1984, Gilham spent the first six years of his career in the UK working on laboratory development projects for Cell- tech and Amersham Inter- national. In 1990 he moved to the US to work for Abbott Laboratories in Illinois, where he was responsible for assessing potential technology acquisitions for that healthcare giant's diagnostics division.

Gilham was quickly transferred from the US to Germany, where he was responsible for acquisitions, licensing and patent strategy for all diagnostics in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. By 1996 he had moved on to Prague as general manager for Abbott in the Czech and Slovak Republics, and while there he eventually took control of all sales, marketing, finance and administration activities for Abbott's diagnostics operations across Central and Eastern Europe.

Up until that point, Gilham said diagnostics had been regarded as a "poor relation" in the various fields of healthcare. However, that was changing - and has continued to change - as more powerful ways of detecting illnesses have become increasingly important in treating diseases as early and effectively as possible.

"It is coming much more to the centre stage than it was, say, 10 years ago," Gilham said.

As a result, Gilham was approached in 1999 to join GlaxoWellcome, as the pharmaceutical giant was becoming increasingly interested in expanding into diagnostics. The new job brought Gilham back to the UK, where he was world-wide director for predictive medicine, based in Greenford.

Not long after he joined, Glaxo merged with rival SmithKline Beecham to create GlaxoSmithKline. Gilham was put in charge of pharmacogenetics and applied diagnostics for GSK, and helped to merge GSK's product portfolio in these areas.

Although he was at GSK at a pivotal period in the company's development, Gilham said working in the pharmaceutical sector did not suit him. With much of his time devoted to strategy development, day-to-day progress was sometimes difficult to measure.

"I just need to see things moving," he said. "Big pharma was just a bit too slow for me."

With existing connections to Axis-Shield, Gilham took up the role of group managing director at the Scottish-Norwegian company in 2001.

Gilham said it seemed a good move, as he already knew Axis-Shield board member Erik Hornnaess, a former executive at Abbott. In addition, Gilham had also met Lien years earlier when he went to visit the Norwegian offices of Axis through his work for Abbott.

The result, Gilham said, has been a smooth transition since he took over as chief executive a couple of months ago.

"Svein and I have worked together for a long time, and I have known Svein for an even longer time," he said. "That was part of the reason why I came here."

The divorced father of two now spends much of his working week travelling between Axis-Shield's various operations. Although he has installed measurable performance targets for all of the company's 450 employees, he insists that no one should have their life "taken over by your Blackberry".

"I don't think it is healthy to work 24/7," Gilham said. "I don't think you make good decisions when you do that, and I don't think it sets a good example.

"I am much more interested in judging people on what contribution they make to the business."

He says he rarely misses a weekend with his children at his home in west London, where he has been a coach on his son's rugby team for the past 10 years. Although he splits his time between his home, an apartment in Oslo and a local hotel in Dundee, he still finds time to train for and participate in about half-a-dozen triathlons every year.

"I travel with my running kit," said Gilham, who will be in Lanzarote for a week in April for cycle training through the volcanoes with his Eaton Triathlon Club.

"I swim whenever I can, and I do a lot at the weekends."