Life sciences outfit wins Dow deal

A Scottish life sciences start-up yesterday unveiled a major deal with New York-listed chemicals giant Dow.

Synpromics, which has developed a method of controlling the output from genes, will undertaken a proof-of-concept project with Dow AgroSciences to demonstrate that its technology can work on crops.

The company, which is moving into Edinburgh BioQuarter, has so far been working in the human life sciences arena.

Synpromics chairman David Lawrence told The Scotsman: “We’re starting to hire staff this month and will spend time building up the business next year. I hope that the initial proof-of-concept project with Dow will lead on to further work with the company.”

Earlier this week, Synpromics was chosen as the sole Scottish business to join a UK government-led trade mission to the SynBioBeta conference in California next month.