Biopta raises £265K venture funding to develop human tissue services

Biopta Ltd, which was spun out from Glasgow Caledonian University in 2002, has raised over £265,000 from Braveheart Investment Group, TRI Cap and the Scottish Co-Investment Fund, for the further development of its human tissue testing techniques.

The company uses donated human tissue from surgery for preclinical testing of drug compounds, and is currently working with eight of the top ten pharmaceutical companies on human tissue research.

Much of the current failure of drugs in development is attributed to the over-reliance on testing drugs in animal models that have limited relevance to humans and pharmaceutical companies are looking for alternatives. Biopta says it has helped many of its clients halt the development of drugs at an early stage by demonstrating they are ineffective or highlighting potential safety concerns.

David Bunton, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Biopta, said, “The commitment from our existing investors has come at an exciting time for our business. We enjoyed rapid growth in 2010 and will build on this by accelerating our development of new service areas. We believe there is no better model for testing human medicines than humans themselves and using surgical discard human tissue means hugely valuable material can be put to good use, rather than be incinerated.”

Biopta completed its last round of investment in December 2008 when it secured £900,000 from the same group of investors, and has since concentrated on establishing a clinical network to provide ethically-donated human tissues. The company says it will use some of the new money to raise awareness, in both the medical and political arenas, of the need for greater use of human tissues.