Development funding
Alba Bioscience Ltd has been awarded a £1.8 million grant from the development agency Scottish Enterprise in the same week as the company’s owner Quotient Biosciences Ltd announced the completion of a £5 million round to fund further expansion.
Edinburgh-based Alba manufactures monoclonal antibodies for use in blood grouping. The company was spun out of the UK National Health Service in 2005 and bought by Quotient from the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service in August last year.
Quotient is a drug discovery services company founded in January 1997 by Paul Cowan, former Chief Financial Officer of Inveresk Group, the Scottish animal testing specialist that Charles River Laboratories Inc bought for $1.5 billion in July 2004.
Since its formation Quotient has bought four companies including Alba, and at the beginning of September closed the £5 million round with TA Associates of Boston, Massachusetts.
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