Ubiquigent  whose February notice of products launching in late March was endorsed by (right) Professor Sir Phillip Cohen, is to receive $3m over three years from Stemgent which has operations in Boston and San Diego.

Ubiquent will collaborate with The Protein Ubiquitylation Unit of the Scottish Institute for Cell Signaling at the University of Dundee, the company said. Ubiquigent will produce biological products and services generated by the SCottish Institute for ceLL Signalling (SCILLS) at the University of Dundee.

SCILLS is directed by Sir Philip Cohen and concentrates on an emerging area of cell signalling called protein ubiquitylation, which has great potential for the development of drugs to treat cancer and chronic inflammatory diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis.

Stemgent will handle the initial marketing for Ubiquigent's products in the US, and announce its plans for European marketing at some point in the near future. It added that the first three employees of Ubiquigent have been working for the past four months with the protein production and assay development team at SCILLS in preparation for initial product launches.

Ubiquigent Ltd has already recruited its first three employees and has established a base in SCILLS where the staff have been working closely with the Protein Production and Assay Development Team of SCILLS in preparation for the initial product launch. The company intends to move to a purpose-built facility in Dundee during 2010.

"This is a fascinating scientific field – the role and mechanism of action of most of the proteins involved in the complex biology of the ubiquitin proteasome pathway are still to be fully understood, and only some of the tools necessary to do this exist today," said Stemgent CEO (left) Ian Ratcliffe, who is CEO of the new venture.

Ratcliffe previously played a key role in setting up the European division of Upstate in the Dundee Technology Park in 1999, and directing its operations until it was acquired by Serologicals for $200m in 2004. Serologicals was subsequently bought by Millipore in 2006. Millipore is currently being acquired by the German giant Merck.