Dissolving film specialist BioFilm Holdings has secured funding of £750,000 from the Scottish Loan Fund (SLF), to help develop its US footprint.
The Blantyre-based firm focuses on producing thin dissolving films, which dissolve in contact with moisture and carry active ingredients.
They are used in over-the-counter (OTC) nutritional, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic products, including teeth-whitening strips and mouth ulcer patches.
Formerly part of Moodiesburn-based Devro plc, developing edible thin films for the meat industry, the business now mainly concentrates on the consumer healthcare market.
As well as the UK, it sells to countries including Mexico, Poland, Australia and the US, where retail sales hit $33 billion in 2013, and whose OTC market the company says offers "considerable" growth potential.
BioFilm this year signed an agreement to grow its North American business with North Carolina-based life sciences business development firm Technology Commercialization Group.BioFilm chief executive Trevor Morgan said the SLF funding will let the company develop its "strong" foundations.
The funding is the 18th transaction by the SLF, which has supported SMEs across Scotland since 2011, and was set up by the Scottish Investment Bank (SIB), the investment arm of Scottish Enterprise.
SIB head Kerry Sharp said BioFilm has been in the lender's portfolio for several years, where it's made "great strides, breaking into the European market, expanding the work force and upgrading its facilities".
The SLF is managed by Maven Capital Partners, whose investment director David Milroy said the OTC market "represents a potentially lucrative market for businesses able to offer a consumer-friendly alternative to existing formulations" given relatively short times to market and sales growth exceeding that of prescription drugs.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article