Lothian biotech firm wins £1.5m for 'lab on a tape'

Published on Wednesday 12 July 2006 12:06

LOTHIAN biomedical firm Lab901 has won £1.5 million of funding to help commercialise the "tape" technology it has developed to speed up DNA testing.

Lab901, based in Bilston Glen in Midlothian, last year developed a way of speed testing multiple samples of DNA using a credit card-sized "lab on a tape" device.

Now it has been granted a fourth round of funding, this time from Noble Fund Managers, on behalf of Noble Venture Capital Trust and Archangel Informal Investment.

The Loanhead company - founded in 2002 by former Motorola workers Joel Fearnley and Stuart Polwart with 400,000 of backing from Archangel - said it will use the funding for product development and to grow the commercial arm of the business. It also intends to use some of the money to further develop its new protein screen tape system.

Noble's funding follows its successful investment in another genetics analysis firm, DRI.

Its sell-off to Invitrogen in 2005 for 60m saw Noble, which had invested 400,000 in the company, come away with 1.3m.

Charlie McMicking,head of private equity at Noble Fund Managers, said former DRI chief executive Simon Douglas had now joined the board of Lab901 as a non-executive director.