Boost for Scottish biotech

The Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre (IBioIC) is to install a 300-litre fermenter at FlexBio, its scale-up facility at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland. This was funded by a £847,000 from the devolved Scottish government.

IBioIC said that the equipment will “address a key missing component in Scotland’s innovation infrastructure”. It will give biotechs open access to a facility that can help them bridge the well-known ‘valley of death’ and scale laboratory-based science up to an industry-ready process without the expense of buying large-capacity fermenters.

FlexBio was launched in 2016 and has supported over 60 projects, up to a capacity of 30 litres. The new funding will enable it to offer up to ten times that volume. Scotland is now home to over 200 companies with a turnover of nearly £800 million/year.