An Edinburgh-based life sciences company CENSO Bioscience has merged with Cambridge-based rival Axol Bioscience.
Under the terms of the agreement, Axol Bioscience chief executive Liam Taylor and his senior leadership team will take over the management of the combined entity. They also intend to transition CENSO to the Axol brand.
The agreement sees CENSO’s interim chief executive Tom Stratford appointed as a non-executive director of the combined board, on behalf of CENSO's major backer Par Equity.
The new entity will become a provider of product and service solutions in neuroscience, immune cell and cardiac modelling for the drug discovery and screening markets.
The transaction is accompanied by a fundraising round in excess £3.8m, led by Calculus Capital and Par Equity.
The investment will be used to enable growth of the business and acquisition of talent to meet customer demand.
Taylor said: “Merging with CENSO immediately and significantly grows our scientific team and breadth of expertise.
"That, and the addition of two sites for cell line manufacturing and custom service work, will increase our production capacity and future-proof our organisation to ensure demand can continue to be met with the short lead times and quality that our customers depend on.”
Stratford added: “The combined entity will now be able to leverage Axol’s strength in derived cells, as well as complementary services such as electrophysiology, to further our ability and efficiency to serve customers.
"We bring to bear capabilities, bandwidth, and expertise to scale the manufacturing of those tools in a way that benefits both customer bases and the wider market.”
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