Absolute Antibody Ltd., an industry-leading provider of recombinant antibody products and services, has received a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in International Trade. The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise are known as the most prestigious awards for UK businesses, recognizing and encouraging the outstanding achievements of innovative British companies. Absolute Antibody, headquartered in Redcar in Northeast England, was recognized for its rapid overseas sales growth over the last three years.

Absolute Antibody was founded in Oxford in 2012 with a vision to make engineered recombinant antibodies accessible to all scientists. The company opened a manufacturing facility at the Wilton Centre in Redcar in 2014 and moved its headquarters to the site in 2019. During the three-year application period for the Queen’s Award, the company’s overseas sales increased 100% and the proportion of sales exported grew to 81% of total sales.

Of particular note, Absolute Antibody acquired the Boston-based company Kerafast, Inc. in 2018 to increase its presence in the North American market. In addition, the company has built a network of 30 distributors worldwide to serve customers in 62 different countries. Customers include 14 of the top 15 pharmaceutical companies by revenue, as well as academic researchers and biotechnology and diagnostics companies around the world.

“The Absolute Antibody team is honored and excited to receive a Queen’s Award for Enterprise,” said Dr. Nicholas Hutchings, founder and CEO of Absolute Antibody. “Our company has been at the forefront of the movement to make recombinant antibodies more readily available to researchers, and we’ve grown rapidly as the demand for recombinant antibody technology increases. We look forward to continuing our rapid global growth in the years to come.”

Absolute Antibody offers antibody sequencing, engineering and recombinant production as custom services, as well as a unique catalog of engineered recombinant antibodies. Antibodies are important biomedical research tools, but reproducibility can be an issue when they are produced using traditional methods. Recombinant antibodies ensure experiments are reproducible, as well as open up new experimental possibilities by enabling the engineering of new antibody formats. Absolute Antibody provides recombinant antibodies to scientists across various research areas, including immunotherapy, allergies and infectious diseases such as the new coronavirus.

The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise have been given annually to leading UK businesses since 1965. The award will be presented to Absolute Antibody at its facility in Redcar later in the year. In addition, Absolute Antibody representatives will attend a royal reception for Queen’s Awards winners at Buckingham Palace this summer.