The Japanese regenerative medicine company ReproCELL Inc., has announced the acquisition of the Scottish life sciences company, Biopta. The acquisition of Biopta and its US subsidiary, Biopta Inc. is expected to complete on the 10th of December and is aimed at strengthening ReproCELL’s pharmaceutical industry-targeted drug discovery services. The acquisition will also see an immediate investment to expand Biopta’s range of contract research services. Biopta, which will continue to operate from its headquarters in Glasgow, aims to grow its workforce to 30 over the next three years and Biopta’s management views the synergies within the ReproCELL Group of companies as key to its growth ambitions. 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 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, 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.”