Cambridge To Be New HQ for Scottish Stem Cell Company
Related News: Stem Cell CompaniesCambridge is to become the UK headquarters and a key hub in a global growth strategy for a Scottish stem cell company that will float on AIM in the next fortnight.
Stem Cell Sciences in Edinburgh will use some of the funding from the IPO to set up in Cambridge as a South East operations centre.
Already a collaborator with The Sanger Institute, SCS says the Cambridge HQ will be used as a springboard to major pharmaceutical companies throughout the South East. The company was also keen to get close to certain technologies that could accelerate the company’s progress, chief scientific officer Dr Tim Allsopp told Business Weekly.
The AIM float will make SCS one of only a handful of embryonic stem cell firms in the world to go public. The company sells cultures of cells to drug companies for use in screening potential medicines in early-stage preclinical trials.
It hopes to raise between £10m and £15m, which would value the business at between £30m and £40m.
Stem Cell Sciences will use the proceeds for new facilities in Cambridge UK and California, adding to its existing capabilities in Edinburgh, Japan and Melbourne, Australia.
Dr Allsop said that in terms of pure research capability, the expansion would make SCS the largest stem cell business in the world – bigger in R & D base than Geron in California.
Posted on June 29, 2005 01:37 AM