Two firms within the Japanese regenerative medicine company ReproCELL Inc, Biopta and Reinnervate, have merged to form a new company called ReproCELL Europe.
The merger combines Biopta’s human tissue services with Reinnervate’s stem cell and 3D cell culture expertise.
Biopta was spun out of Glasgow Caledonian University in 2002, while Reinnervate, also founded in 2002, was a spinout from Durham University.
ReproCELL Europe will operate from new headquarters in Glasgow, UK, with an established production and distribution site in Sedgefield, Co. Durham.
The firm aims to grow its workforce of 21 'significantly' over the next three years and plans to move to larger premises in Glasgow within the next nine months.
ReproCELL Europe will operate from new headquarters in Glasgow, UK
Dr David Bunton, Biopta’s co-founder and now CEO of ReproCELL Europe, said: 'The merger of the two UK companies is a great opportunity to build on the solid platform Biopta has in outsourced drug discovery services and combine this with Reinnervate’s expertise in 3D cell culture and stem cell technology.
'As the drug market moves towards a personalised medicine approach, this will allow our company to increase our market share by expanding our range of human tissue drug discovery assays aimed at the pharmaceutical industry, and also accelerate the development of ReproCELL’s new iPSC products and services.'
ReproCELL, a leader in the field of stem cells and regenerative medicine, was established in 2003 to develop stem cell technologies. Many of the firm's technologies were developed by stem cell pioneers, Prof. Norio Nakatsuji from the Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences, Kyoto University and Prof. Hiromitsu Nakauchi from The Institute of Medical Sciences, The University of Tokyo.
ReproCELL’s CEO, Dr Chikafumi Yokoyama, said the merger is 'an exciting development for ReproCELL and crucial for our expansion into the European market'.
He added: 'Scotland is one of Europe’s top locations for stem cell research and we feel our European headquarters will be ideally placed for expansion of our stem cell products and services.'