MatTek Life Sciences, a Boston-area tissue engineering company and a part of the BICO Group, announced today its European facility in Bratislava, Slovakia, will begin producing and shipping EpiOral, a lab-grown human oral epithelial tissue used to evaluate consumer product safety and efficacy. This expansion in production enables shorter shipment times to the European market, while maintaining the highest standard of production quality. This strategic expansion from MatTek aligns with the BICO Group’s strategy to increase accessibility to more sustainable solutions for drug testing and reducing the overall dependency on animal models. “Within the BICO Bioprinting Business Area we are seeing consistent growth in demand for tissue models and alternatives to animal testing. Especially in Europe as legislation shifts towards more sustainable solutions. We remain committed to expanding our entire offering to the region and ensuring that we support this paradigm shift”, comments Artur Aira, SVP and Bioprinting Business Area Director at BICO.
MatTek established its laboratories in Slovakia in 2009 to provide its European customers with local technical support and enhanced shipping capabilities to serve the pharmaceutical, chemical, cosmetic, and personal care industries in emerging markets. Production at the facility began in 2012 with EpiDerm, and has expanded to include EpiOcular, EpiIntestinal, EpiAirway, EpiDermFT, a broad selection of MatTek’s Glass Bottom Dishes and now EpiOral.
“We’ve recently accelerated technology transfer to enhance our production capabilities in Europe and make our technology more easily accessible worldwide,” said Kevin Causey, vice president of business development at MatTek. “Our team in Europe has done a great job of adhering to rigorous training and QC standards to maintain the product quality and service that our customers have come to expect.”
“We’re able to deliver quality products and technical support to European customers with the added benefit of shorter shipping times, easier customs clearance, and lower cost shipments,” said Dr. Silvia Letasiova, managing director of MatTek Europe. “We look forward to continuing to expand our portfolio of MatTek products available from our facility in Bratislava.”
For further information, please contact:
Avijit Minocha, Head of Marketing, BICO
Phone (US): +1 (617) 637 5372
Email: akm@bico.com
About MatTek Life Sciences
Founded in 1985, MatTek Life Sciences began producing three-dimensional human tissue models as reliable replacements for animal testing. MatTek’s physiologically advanced tissue models empower companies in the cosmetics, chemical, and pharmaceutical industries to achieve their goals of non-animal testing while lowering preclinical costs and providing human-relevant results. With locations in the US and Europe, today MatTek’s offerings include skin, eye, oral, respiratory, vaginal, and intestinal tissue models including disease modeling, validated, and custom testing services, multiple donor primary cells, culture media, and highly optical cultureware.
About BICO
Founded in 2016, BICO (formerly CELLINK) is the leading bio convergence company in the world. By combining different technologies, such as robotics, artificial intelligence, computer science, and 3D bioprinting with biology, we enable our customers to improve people’s health and lives for the better.
The company has a focus on developing technologies that will advance Health 4.0 Next Generation Core Industry Ecosystems that enable tissue engineering, diagnostics, multiomics, and cell line development. BICO’s technologies enable researchers in the life sciences to culture cells in 3D, perform high-throughput drug screening and print human tissues and organs for the medical, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic industries. We create the future of health.
The Group’s instruments in the field amounts to 25,000, including all the top 20 pharmaceutical companies, are being used in more than 65 countries, and have been cited in more than 9,500 publications. BICO is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm under BICO. www.bico.com
