Tocris Bioscience

Tocris Bioscience is a supplier of chemicals, peptides and antibodies as biological tools. These are useful as GPCR agonists and antagonists, nuclear receptor ligands, ion channel modulators and signal transduction inhibitors for pre-clinical research.

Company History

• Tocris Bioscience is the trading name for the companies in the Tocris Cookson Group consisting of Tocris Cookson Ltd. and its wholly owned US subsidiary Tocris Cookson Inc. Tocris Cookson Ltd. is privately held and headquartered in Bristol, UK. Tocris Cookson Inc. is located in St. Louis, MO, USA. There are approximately 60 employees in the Group worldwide, operating out of three sites in the UK and one in the US.

• Tocris Cookson Ltd was incorporated in the UK in July 1994 as the result of a merger between Tocris Neuramin Ltd of Bristol, UK and Cookson Chemicals Ltd of Southampton, UK.

• Tocris Neuramin was founded in 1982 by Professor Jeff Watkins of the Pharmacology Department in the University of Bristol, UK. Watkins’ research interests focused on glutamate receptors and their involvement in the synaptic transmission processes of the mammalian central nervous system. Tocris Neuramin was founded to make standard research tools and novel probes in this field easily available to researchers, at least partly in response to the number of requests for samples Watkins was receiving at the time. [cite journal |author=Watkins E, Jane D|title=The Glutamate Story |journal=British Journal of Pharmacology |volume=147 |pages=S100-S108 |year=2006 |pmid=16402093 |doi=]

• Cookson Chemicals was formed in 1985 by Richard Cookson, Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Southampton, UK. Cookson Chemicals provided custom synthesis services as well as a range of neurochemicals to the pharmaceutical and allied industries.

• In 2002 Tocris Cookson was awarded The Queen's Awards for Enterprise in the International Trade category.

• In January 2007 Tocris Bioscience announced the successful completion of a $40 million MBO. Watkins and Cookson no longer have any involvement in the company.

Today, Tocris Bioscience has customers in virtually all of the worlds major pharmaceutical companies, universities and research institutes, with a catalogue of over 2000 products which is sent to more than 50,000 researchers worldwide annually.

References

External links

* [http://www.tocris.com Official site]