DRUG development company Biopta is being bought by Japanese firm Reprocell in a deal worth around £5.5 million.
The Scottish business, founded in 2002 by Dr David Bunton and Professor Chris Hillier as a spin-out from Glasgow Caledonian University, is a specialist in using human tissue in the drug development process.
Testing drugs on human tissue is believed to give rise to more accurate results than animal testing.
Biopta, which also has a laboratory in Maryland in the United States, provides contract research services to the global pharmaceutical industry and has a staff of 18.
It said it hopes to grow staff numbers to 30 over the next three years as a result of the deal.
Investors in the Glasgow business include venture groups Braveheart and TriCapital along with Scottish Enterprise.
Mr Bunton, who is chief executive and also a shareholder, said: “The acquisition by Reprocell is a great opportunity to build on the solid platform we have in outsourced drug discovery services.
“We have had a close partnership with BioServe, another Reprocell group company, for the past five 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, which has its headquarters in Yokohama and is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, said: “Biopta is a pioneering developer of drug discovery support services, taking an integrated approach to the provision of human tissues and preclinical contract research (CRO services) using ethically-sourced human tissues.
“The company is strongly competitive and has many achievements, backed by their high levels of technological prowess.”
Reprocell said it was buying 50.26 per cent of Biopta’s shares in cash.
The value of the remainder of the deal is being satisfied through the issuance of new Reprocell shares.
Biopta has worked on more than 500 potential new medicines.
Chikafumi Yokoyama, chief executive of Reprocell, added: “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.”
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 here