Funding for alternative to animal testing

A near-£1 million investment will help University of Dundee spinout company Ten Bio Ltd to commercialise the human skin culture system it developed to provide a viable alternative for many experiments currently performed on animals. EBS provided advice and support to Ten Bio founders Dr Robyn Hickerson and Dr Michael Conneely following their success at Converge Challenge.

Led by TRICAPITAL LTD and with matched funding from Scottish Enterprise, the investment of £911,000 will enable the company to progress its mission to transform the testing of new pharmaceutical and cosmetic products. Initial launch of the company’s brand will be in the US, where the majority of potential customers are based.

Pharmaceutical and cosmetics companies test their products rigorously before they are administered to humans. There is an unmet need for technologies that will generate reliable safety and efficacy data on their effects on human skin. Ten Bio’s TenSkinTM system provides companies with a reliable, tunable skin testing model.

Building on years of research, the company’s founders have successfully created a patented, human skin culture system that closely mimics intact, living skin. TenSkin™ stretches human skin to an optimal tension to mimic the mechanobiology that exists in skin on our bodies. This provides a state-of-the-art tool for skin biology research and pharmaceutical and cosmetics testing.

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