A DETERMINATION to steer her own destiny took Caroline Briggs out of the world of corporate pharmaceuticals armed with little more than an idea, gumption and a desire “to make stuff happen”.

With a background as a forensic chemist and an eight-year career in firms such as AstraZeneca and GSK under her belt, Ms Briggs moved to set up Amici Procurement Solutions 14 years ago from scratch, and is now banking on a steady annual 30 per cent growth serving the biotech industry.

Her idea was to make ways of finding and buying the specialist materials for the ground-breaking sector easier.

She said: “If you have a highly qualified scientist who can deliver something life-changing, then that person needs to be doing that job, not distracted by administration.

“I had thought about starting my company for some time, and I felt I had skills in procurement, particularly in the biotech and pharmaceuticals sector.

“And so I understood this market and what you don’t want if you’ve got an incredibly talented scientist who has the ability to find the cure to cancer, is them spending several hours a day creating purchase orders, chasing suppliers for quotes, chasing orders that haven’t been delivered or chasing their boss to sign off a purchase order.”

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Ms Briggs said: “It was a big risk to build the IT and I never borrowed any money from anybody, I just funded it all through my own. I stopped paying my mortgage and didn’t pay myself anything.

“It was three years before we started to see a return.”

Building a customer base also took time. “I think if you’ve got no brand and no reputation in the early days, then you have to have something to hook people in.

“So initially people were attracted based on the no-risk saving potential.

“We still operate on a guaranteed savings basis. If we don’t save our customers money, then we don’t bill them.

“But then it became apparent that once we’d launched the platform, the customer valued their time much more than even the substantial savings that we delivered.”

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Next, customers wanted to track orders.

“So we built a solution for that and we built a team for that.”

As it grew, the Hillington-based firm became closer to the “dripping roast” she had been advised by a friend’s father to pursue.

“The complexity of this market is if you’re doing drug discovery, it is cutting edge work so you can’t necessarily predict what you might buy tomorrow because they’re constantly evolving, not like in manufacturing.

“So, you constantly need to buy lots of new things and maybe only one of them and they might be relatively low value like a £50 item, and you just need it once and you never need it again, because it just didn’t work or it did work so now you’ve proven that you don’t need to do it again.”

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She also says: “If you can somehow take a supplier’s whole catalogue, because you don’t know what they’re going to buy tomorrow and get across the board discounts, then you can set something up which is good and easy for everybody.

“It’s good for the suppliers, because the suppliers had a cost in servicing the business with people phoning them up, asking for prices, managing the administration of the sales side, so they had a ready market with orders driven to them with no effort whatsoever then it was mutually beneficial for everybody to be in this model.”

The core business is now across biotech companies in the UK and US dedicated to getting new medicines, diagnostics or services out to change people’s lives.

Amici says it is a “software as a service” firm that uses group buying power to access prices not normally available.

“The secret to success is not necessarily looking at what other people are doing, but looking at what the needs of the customers are and then just meeting those needs.

“People all the time want kind of weird and unusual things because it’s something to do with R&D.

“So we have a team whose job it is to constantly look for weird and unusual things. Unusual chemicals. Getting the specifications right.”

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Ms Briggs continued: “Every month we send them a full report of everything that they’ve bought, their actual savings that month based on what the prices were before Amici, so we can calculate their savings very accurately.

“Then there’s a fee, which is always less than the savings. We always deliver an excellent ratio of savings to the Amici fee for the procurement.”

The firm currently has 15 product and five service offerings, with more under development.

Now the firm is looking to expand its team from 43 to 50.

The current make-up of across all levels in the firm is 70% female and 30% male.

It sees broad opportunity for expansion with 80% business from England, 10% Scotland and 10% from the US.

“Enabling growth is all about finding the right people and keeping them excited. We have always tried to be intrapreneurial, and this year we are launching business units for the leadership team to allow them to have their own mini business within the business.

“Each person can be a true intrepreneur.”

She adds: “Our ambition is to be a solid Scottish business, but with a UK and US dominance.

“I’d like to build something that lives on and provides long-term benefit all those who have helped growth this business and currently looking at different models.”

Q&A ...........................................

What countries have you most enjoyed travelling to, for business or leisure, and why?

I do love travelling for work and leisure, but if you asked me to pick, I’d say there is no place like home. It can be all consuming running a company and things never stop. Being at home and enjoying moments with my two children and husband, walks along the beach and breathing the sea air, working in my garden, playing my piano, or even cleaning the house provide ying to the yang of running a company.

When you were a child, what was your ideal job? Why did it appeal?

If I could do it all again, I might go for medicine. Careers advice wasn’t very good when I was at school or uni. If I had more time I would love to help young people understand more about the careers that might be great for them.

What was your biggest break in business?

I’m very grateful to my first few customers. I’m also grateful to the wonderful team we have at Amici who have grown with the business and been with me for the long haul no matter what.

What was your worst moment in business?

At the very start of the business I lacked a little self-confidence and confidence in my direction. I was only 29 and without advisors or a board, there were moments which were a little lonely.

Who do you most admire and why?

I admire people who are determined to make the most of their life and do something which is for the betterment of other people.

What book are you reading and what music are you listening to?

Two of my favourite books that have helped me have been the Chimp Paradox and Black Box Thinking. I love playing the piano, but my piano obsession has recently been overtaken with a gardening obsession.

What was the last film you saw?

I’ve probably been to the cinema three times in 12 years and then to take the children.