Singapore: Plasticell, the biotechnology company specialising in high throughput technologies for directed stem cell differentiation, has engaged Veritas of Tokyo as the exclusive distributor for all of itsservices and products, including CombiCult, in Japan.

CombiCult breaks the major bottleneck in stem cell research and development programs - the discovery of optimised stem cell differentiation protocols. CombiCult also allows scientists to develop custom cell culture media, create high value cell lines for toxicity testing in the pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and nutrition industries, and to increase yield and decrease cost of bioprocess manufacturing.

Japan is one of the leading countries in stem cell research, especially in the field of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells). By making CombiCult more accessible to the Japanese research community through an active presence with Veritas, Plasticell hopes to reduce the cost and risk while significantly accelerating the stem cell research effort in Japan.

"Plasticell has a unique and powerful platform that indeed breaks the bottleneck of stem cell research. With its high-throughput system, CombiCult, Plasticell is able to significantly reduce the cost of obtaining not just differentiation or expansion protocols, but optimized protocols. This also cuts many months, if not years, off a stem cell research program, reducing risk and allowing researchers to contemplate working on challenging cell types. We hope to deploy this important technology widely in Japan," commented Mr Shinsaku Iida, president, Veritas in Tokyo.

Mr Dennis Saw, CEO, Plasticell added, "Japan is a very important market for Plasticell and we are pleased to have engaged Veritas, an established and respected biotech goods and services distributor in Japan. We are excited to make CombiCult more readily available to the Japanese stem cell research community, and are confident that CombiCult can be used as a tool to the advantage of Japanese stem cell science."