Tocris Bioscience

Tocris Bioscience is the trading name for the companies in the Tocris Cookson Group, consisting of Tocris Cookson Ltd., which is headquartered in Bristol, UK and its US subsidiary Tocris Cookson Inc., located in St. Louis, MO, USA. There are approximately 50 employees in the Group worldwide, operating out of two sites in the UK and one in the US. In May 2011 Tocris Bioscience was wholly acquired by R&D Systems, headquartered in Minneapolis, MN.

Key Dates

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.

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.

In 2002 Tocris Cookson was awarded The Queen's Awards for Enterprise in the International Trade category and later in 2006 received nominations in five categories of the prestigious Life Science Industry Awards.

In October 2005 Tocris announced the opening of new laboratories at the IO Centre, Bristol, UK. At this time, to reflect the increasingly biological nature of the products and customer base the trading name was changed to Tocris Bioscience.

In January 2007 Tocris Bioscience announced the successful completion of a $40 million management buy-out (MBO) deal, providing Tocris with the ability and freedom to further develop its existing business areas and to offer additional products and services to its international client base.

In May 2011 Tocris Bioscience announced that it was combining with R&D Systems. R&D Systems' products include a wide selection of biotechnology-based tools for cell biology research including proteins, antibodies, assays and kits.

Tocris Bioscience look forward to combining resources and talents with those of R&D Systems to create a single source for bioactive proteins, antibodies, assays and the pharmacological tools needed for further understanding complex biochemical processes. To learn more about the company and their products visit the R&D Systems website.