SMi Systems is delighted to announce that it has appointed Dr Stefan Hamill as its Vice President of Strategy. Dr Hamill was formerly a senior analyst at investment banks Numis (now Deutsche Numis) and Peel Hunt, both of which he helped transform into #1 ranked franchises in UK Life Sciences. In his career in capital markets, he was consistently ranked in the top three UK Healthcare and Life Sciences analysts for more than a decade and completed some of the most high-profile transactions in the sector. Stefan was lead analyst for clients such as the life science research tools companies Abcam and Oxford Nanopore and IP commercialisation firms Syncona, PureTech Health and Oxford Science Enterprises. He holds a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Cambridge and is a CFA charterholder.

Dr Andrew Thompson, CEO at SMi commented: “We are very excited to have Stef join us, especially since we are now entering the commercialisation phase of SMi’s development. As an analyst, Stef had a strong track record in identifying life science growth champions at an early stage and then supporting their management teams to attract growth capital throughout their lifecycle and deliver multi-billion-dollar success on a global stage. Stef’s experience and contacts in the life science tools sector will be highly valuable to SMi given the wide applicability of our technology across multiple fields in biomedical research and diagnostics.

We have made excellent progress since our 2021 seed round. With our instrument now locked down and ready to deploy to early access customers, we are evolving towards a focus on our portfolio of precision engineered consumables, which will enable a range of research experiments and high-throughput applications to be performed using the same core platform.”

Dr Hamill responded, "As an analyst I identified promising life sciences companies at an early stage and was fortunate to work with several that became $1B+ global success stories. I left the City with a mission to continue to help build the life sciences sector by directly supporting innovative companies. SMi stands out as one of the most exciting companies in the UK life sciences startup scene. Its technology platform measures valuable data at the single molecule level faster and more easily than existing methods, generating new biological insights that could transform research, drug discovery and other applied markets. From an investment perspective, SMi’s technology offers attractive unit economics, rapid analytical speeds (less than a second per sample) and high scalability (hundreds of samples per run). These features are set to drive significant consumables throughput resulting in an attractive high-margin, high recurring revenue profile that sets SMi apart. I'm delighted to join as VP of Strategy to help SMi reach its full potential.”