Archie Cullen Named President of BioReliance

ST LOUIS, March 5, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Sigma-Aldrich^® Corporation (NASDAQ: SIAL) today announced that its custom manufacturing and services business unit, SAFC^® (www.safcglobal.com), has appointed Archie Cullen as the new president of BioReliance^® (http://www.bioreliance.com). BioReliance is the biologics and early development services business SAFC put into place to provide customers with a portfolio that extends from development and commercialization through testing. Cullen replaces Charles Harwood, who is retiring following the acquisition of BioReliance by Sigma-Aldrich in January 2012 and the subsequent integration of BioReliance into SAFC over the past year.

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In his previous position as Vice President of SAFC, Cullen played a significant role in the acquisition of BioReliance in 2012, which enables SAFC to provide industry leading testing services and solutions to complement SAFC's broad product offering and strong technology platforms.

"Being able to go to market with our product offerings complemented by an integrated testing platform is expected to create a great opportunity for SAFC to enable new product and service solutions to our customers," stated Archie Cullen, President of BioReliance. "Right now, each business is benefiting from its ability to introduce and reintroduce each other to the respective customer bases. My role will be to support a go-to-market approach with a coordinated offering from raw materials to testing.  That's what our larger customers have been requesting."

"As individual business units, SAFC and BioReliance have each built industry leading offerings and positive reputations. As an integrated business unit, we see great value in the fact that we can coordinate strengths to provide a comprehensive solution to our customers," said Gilles Cottier, President of SAFC. "In order to ensure we maximize this value at the customer level, we needed to appoint someone who not only understands SAFC and BioReliance but, more importantly, someone who is intimate with the customers and their requirements. We are fortunate enough to have that in Archie. This is a great opportunity to drive customer value and shareholder value with Archie as the leader of the business."

Cullen's career includes a broad range of global experience in the biopharma sector, including time with Life Technologies and JRH Biosciences. Following the acquisition in 2005 by Sigma-Aldrich, Cullen became Vice President of Commercial and Technical Operations for SAFC's biosciences business unit where he was responsible for the organization's global sales, marketing, research and development functions. In 2009, he was promoted to Vice President of Sales for SAFC where he headed up strategic accounts globally. Cullen holds a Bachelor's of Science degree from the University of Glasgow and a Master of Business of Administration degree from Open University.

"While we are excited about the appointment of Archie, I would also like to recognize and thank Charlie Harwood on behalf of all of us here at Sigma-Aldrich. Under his guidance BioReliance established a clear leadership position in providing critical services to the Biopharma industry. Over the past year he has expertly undertaken the significant transition of the BioReliance team into SAFC. We wish him well," concluded Cottier.

The foregoing release contains forward-looking statements that can be identified by terminology such as "is expected" or similar expressions, or by expressed or implied discussions regarding potential future revenues from products derived there from. You should not place undue reliance on these statements. There can be no guarantee that the services in SAFC's service offering will continue to meet the demands of the marketplace. Nor can there be any guarantee that any of these services will achieve any particular levels of revenue in the future. Such forward-looking statements reflect the current views of management regarding future events, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. In particular, management's expectations regarding these products could be affected by, among other things, unexpected regulatory actions or delays or government regulation generally; the Company's ability to obtain or maintain patent or other proprietary intellectual property protection; competition in general; government, industry and general public pricing pressures; the impact that the foregoing factors could have on the values attributed to the Company's assets and liabilities as recorded in its consolidated balance sheet, and other risks and factors referred to in Sigma-Aldrich's current Form 10-K on file with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those anticipated, believed, estimated or expected. Sigma-Aldrich is providing the information in this press release as of this date and does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

About BioReliance by SAFC: BioReliance was acquired by Sigma-Aldrich Corporation, in January, 2012 to supply customers access to a powerful, single-point provider whose products and services span the drug discovery, development and commercialization pipeline. As part of the SAFC business unit, BioReliance is a leading provider of cost-effective contract services, offering more than 1,000 tests or services related to biologics safety testing, specialized toxicology and animal health services. BioReliance has over 700 employees and has laboratory operations in Rockville, MD and Scotland. For more information, visit www.bioreliance.com. 

About SAFC:  SAFC, the custom manufacturing and services business unit of Sigma-Aldrich Corporation, is recognized as a top 10 global specialty chemicals and biologics supplier. As a trusted manufacturer for the life science and high technology industries, SAFC works closely with customers to resolve development challenges and accelerate the product pipeline utilizing its global "Centers of Excellence" and dedicated manufacturing facilities. Its rich portfolio includes high-purity inorganic materials for high technology applications, critical raw materials and extensive biologics safety testing services for biopharmaceutical manufacturing, and complex, high-potent APIs and key intermediates for pharmaceutical manufacturing. For more information, visit www.safcglobal.com.

About Sigma-Aldrich: Sigma-Aldrich is a leading Life Science and High Technology company whose biochemical, organic chemical products, kits and services are used in scientific research, including genomic and proteomic research, biotechnology, pharmaceutical development, the diagnosis of disease and as key components in pharmaceutical, diagnostics and high technology SAFC manufacturing. Sigma-Aldrich customers include more than 1.3 million scientists and technologists in life science companies, university and government institutions, hospitals and industry. The Company operates in 38 countries and has nearly 9,000 employees whose objective is to provide excellent service worldwide. Sigma-Aldrich is committed to accelerating customer success through innovation and leadership in Life Science and High Technology. For more information about Sigma-Aldrich, please visit its website at www.sigma-aldrich.com.

©2013 Sigma-Aldrich Co. LLC. All rights reserved. BioReliance and SAFC are trademarks of Sigma-Aldrich Co. LLC or its Affiliates, registered in the US and other countries.

SOURCE Sigma-Aldrich Corporation