Dr Nicky Pattrick joins from GSK's business development department. Nicky has a experience of negotiating a wide range of collaborative and licensing agreements with both commercial and academic partners worldwide. Her areas of expertise are drug delivery, imaging and nanotechnology in the life sciences field. She holds a biochemistry degree from University College London and a PhD in drug delivery from the London School of Pharmacy.

Joining from Pfizer's Worldwide Business Development group Dr Deirdre O'Brien brings experience of in-licensing antiviral, antibacterial, antifungal and vaccines for human health indications. In addition to her business development expertise Deirdre has also gained significant experience in Pharmaceutical Sciences R&D in a variety of areas including crystallisation technologies, Inhalation drug delivery and materials assessment. She holds a PhD in Chemistry from University College Dublin, and is currently completing an MBA.

Elaine Eggington and Dr Quinton Fivelman expand IP Pragmatics expertise in commercialising early-stage technologies. Elaine has over 9 years experience in commercialising early stage life science products and technologies. She was Investment Manager with day to day responsibility for the Lachesis Fund, the £8m University Challenge Fund for the East Midlands, managing a portfolio of 30 start up companies and development technologies. Elaine has an MA from the University of Cambridge and an MSc from The City University.

Prior to joining IP Pragmatics Quinton managed business development and knowledge transfer at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (University of London) where he was responsible for managing proof of concept funding for a range of public health technologies and launching new business initiatives by assisting many projects to move from the laboratory to the marketplace. He has a PhD in malaria molecular genetics and drug combinations from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and an Honours degree in Pharmacology, Chemistry and Microbiology from the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Rupert Osborn, IP Pragmatics CEO said: "I am very pleased to welcome Nicky, Deirdre, Elaine and Quinton to the team. Between them their breadth of "hands on" experience in the biotech, pharma and investment arena further enhances IP Pragmatics capability to deliver a unique combination scientific and business expertise to our clients."

Forecaster Integrated – all the functions of IP Forecaster integrated with your existing patent records or docketing system including:

• No need for double data entry, updating is carried out automatically from your existing records system
• Add patent budgeting and cost forecasting functionality to your existing records system
• Let your clients produce their own budgets direct from your existing records system
• Upgrades available to include the full functionality of Forecaster Pro as part of the integrated offering

Forecaster Pro – a comprehensive case management and cost forecasting system which can be used to collate and database your entire patent portfolio to give a clear picture of its current and future status including:

• All the functions of IP Forecaster PLUS
• A case management system including document storage
• A timeline mapping critical IP-related events
• A diary and reminder system
• The ability to model the cost implications of different filing programs

Under the NetsPat brand IP Pragmatics offer a range of online patent financial forecasting tools and intellectual property management software to help organisations quickly and accurately create patent budgets. Adam Wylie, Managing Director, Services said:
"The new portfolio of NetsPat products provides our customers with a number of flexible options which allows them to select a patent costing tool that fulfils their patent management and budgeting needs. All of the new products offer the high levels of functionality and delivery of accurate, up-to-date costs that have always been associated with NetsPat products."

IP Pragmatics is pleased to be co-sponsoring the life sciences category of the Northern Ireland Science Park's (NISP) Connect £25k Business Plan competition. The awards will be announced on 24th September 2009. Two of the 10 short listed new technology business concepts have been supported by IP Pragmatics through their work with the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI).

IPPL exhibited at the recent Unico - The University Companies Association - meeting held in Brighton. The meeting was an opportunity for the company to showcase the range of services it now offers to Universities including its redesigned NetsPat product. IP Pragmatics also ran an InterAct project workshop at the meeting, on Commercialisation and PSREs which attracted about 40 attendees.

IP Pragmatics attended the annual BIO meeting in Atlanta, May 18-21 on behalf of the InterAct project and other clients. IP Pragmatics used the event to meet prospective partners for clients licensing opportunities. The event also provided the opportunity to network with existing contacts and establish new ones.

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew has been awarded £2m of funding from the Wellcome Trust to launch the Great Plant Hunt to mark the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth. This exciting project will encourage children to explore the natural world around them and join other schools in the biggest ever school science project. Forming part of the Darwin 200 initiative, The Great Plant Hunt invites primary school children to follow in the footsteps of Darwin by going on nature walks in and around their school grounds. The Wellcome Trust award was secured by Kew through a business plan written with the help of IP Pragmatics. For more information on the Great Plant Hunt please see: www.greatplanthunt.org.

IP Pragmatics has been awarded a significant new DARD tender to provide IP commercialisation support to the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) in Northern Ireland. AFBI is one of the world's leading providers of scientific research and services to government, non-governmental and commercial organisations.

IP Pragmatics exhibited at the NZ BIO conference in Auckland, New Zealand, March 9-11 where the company promoted it's new office and NZ based resource and showcased the re-designed NetsPat product. On behalf of the InterAct project IP Pragmatics took part in the UKTI mission to NZ BIO and met with a number of NZ based companies and research institutes. Two presentations were given about the InterAct project.

IP Pragmatics exhibited at the annual AUTM (Association of University Technology Managers) meeting in Orlando, February 12-14 on behalf of the InterAct project. The event was an opportunity for InterAct to meet with licensing managers from potential partner companies as well as an opportunity to meet other research organisations that may have synergistic IP. Rupert Osborn, CEO took full advantage of the additional networking event held on the golf course when he won the AUTM golf competition.

IP Pragmatics and InterAct will also be attending the annual BIO conference in Atlanta in May 2009.

IP Pragmatics continues their expansion with the opening of a new office in Tualatin, Oregon. Bob Kish, President, North American Sales will focus on expanding the US customer base for the IP Pragmatics patent budgeting tool NetsPat. Bob will work closely with the IP Pragmatics Services Team based at IP Pragmatics' head office in London.