STEM Cell Sciences, the pioneering Edinburgh University spin-out which aims to cure degenerative disorders, yesterday said it had opened a new plant in Cambridge after months of delays - and that it will use new technology to reduce the need for animal testing in the pharmaceutical industry.
The new automated cell production facility will also allow customers to buy stem cells direct from the AIM-listed firm, which licenses its research and sells cultures of stem cells to test potential new drugs for pharmaceuticals firms, and is expected to add significantly to revenues next year.
The investment is aimed specifically at providing stem cell-based tests for the global pharmaceutical industry, and its new plant contains a state of the art robotic cell culture machine, called the Compact Select, to help screen candidate drugs for efficacy.
The company said the use of stem cell-derived cell lines for screening promises much greater speed and efficiency than current methods, and that it also reduces the need for animal testing in pharmaceutical research and development.
Combined with SCS's range of stem cell lines and sophisticated stem cell engineering tools, the new plant and its equipment ensures the pharmaceutical industry can now get of the right quantity and quality of "cells in wells" needed for advanced drug discovery.
Stem cells are master cells, the building blocks of other cells, which researchers believe can be coaxed and grown into any type of cell in the human body.
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