Ruskinn Life Sciences

An award winning Welsh bioscience company has opted to move into Technium Digital@Sony to drive forward its pioneering work designed to significantly improve the success rate for couples undergoing IVF treatment.

Ruskinn Life Sciences Ltd (RLS Ltd) has designed and developed a unique laboratory work station for use in IVF clinics which is currently undergoing trials in Europe and set to be launched early next year.

Their AC-TIVE (Assisted Conception Total In Vitro Environment) workstations are unique because they enable all the procedures and manipulations undertaken during assisted conception to be carried out within the controlled and enclosed atmosphere of the work station.

The workstations effectively combine all the essential environments needed for healthy cell growth and carefully control such factors as the O2, humidity, temperature and C0² concentration.

IVF success rates are affected by external factors including air quality and temperature. The AC-TIVE workstations provide the optimum atmosphere as the cells need never leave the correct environment for manipulation or incubation which minimises the failure rate.

RLS Ltd, which won a top prize in this year’s Technium Challenge competition, and its sister company Ruskinn Technology Ltd, became independent companies in February 2006 following a management buy-out.

The Ruskinn brand was founded in 1993 and became part of the Biotrace International group in 2001. It is a world leader in the development of highly specialised modified atmosphere workstations specifically designed for anaerobic incubation and precision monitoring of cell and tissue culture material.

RLS Ltd was formed to target the massive increase in demand for assisted conception and reproductive technologies.

It is targeting a large niche world market - there are currently 2800 assisted reproductive medicine centres worldwide and this figure is anticipated to increase to 3400 in five years time.