ReproCELL acquires Biopta to expand its drug discovery services

Acquisition aimed at strengthening ReproCELL’s pharmaceutical industry-targeted drug discovery services.

Dr David Bunton, Biopta’s co-founder and CEO said: “The acquisition by ReproCELL is a great opportunity to build on the solid platform we have in outsourced drug discovery services. Scotland is known for the quality of its scientists and customer service and ReproCELL’s investment recognizes these strengths. We have had a close partnership with BioServe, another ReproCELL Group company, for the past 5 years, which has helped us establish a very successful US subsidiary. We see the acquisition as the natural next step in the growth of the UK and US businesses.”

ReproCELL, a leader in the field of stem cells and regenerative medicine, was established in 2003 with the goal of contributing to people’s health and welfare through the development of stem cell technologies. Many of ReproCELL’s technologies were developed by the 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 of the acquisition: “This will allow our company to increase our market share by expanding our lineup of drug discovery support products aimed at the pharmaceutical industry and accelerate the development of ReproCELL’s new products and services.”

Biopta was spun out of Glasgow Caledonian University in 2002 by its co-founders, Dr David Bunton, its CEO, and Professor Chris Hillier, with the aim of addressing the high failure rate of drugs during clinical trials through the use of ethically-sourced human tissues. The use of human tissues is considered more predictive of human responses to medicines than animal experiments and is part of a growing move by the pharmaceutical industry towards “non-animal alternatives”. Moreover, the advent of “precision medicine”, which aims to deliver the “right drug, at the right dose, to the right patient”, necessitates the use of human tissue-based experiments of the type offered by Biopta, which reflect the diversity of the patient population.

Biopta has developed a network of clinical partners in the UK and US which provide human tissue samples for its research into diseases such as asthma, Crohn’s disease and psoriasis. Biopta counts eight of the top ten pharmaceutical companies among its clients and has worked on over 500 potential new medicines. Biopta’s Finance Director, Elaine Ferguson, says the cost savings for the pharmaceutical industry of improved drug selection are considerabl: “the cost of each clinical failure has now become so high that most pharmaceutical companies are focusing on better preclinical selection of drugs, with a “fail fast, fail early” approach. Biopta’s methods are just as valuable in identifying which drugs won’t work in patients, as they are in identifying the next blockbuster drug”.