Btg - History

History

In 1948, the National Research Development Corporation was formed with the purpose of commercialising innovations that arose from public funded research. This was complemented in November 1975 by the establishment of the National Enterprise Board to implement the then-Government's policy of moving public sector industry into commercial private enterprise.

These two organisations were merged by the Government in 1981 to form a new, non-statutory body called the British Technology Group. It acted principally as a technology transfer company, licencing and commercialising the use of publicly-funded developments. The Group was put onto a statutory footing in the British Technology Group Act, 1991 with HM Treasury initially being the only shareholder. Subsequently, in March 1992, Cinven arranged a management buy-out from the Government. The company later floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1995. Three years later, on 27 May 1998, the Group adopted its present name. It now focuses its work on developing and commercialising medical innovations.

Since acquiring the commercialisation rights to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) (under a revenue share scheme) in 1983, BTG has come to licence a large part of the world market in MRI, including licencees such as General Electric and Philips.

BTG plc completed the acquisition of Protherics PLC in December 2008 and of Biocompatibles International plc in January 2011.