A Northern California biotechnology company announced on Wednesday that it would start auctioning five slots which would grant the people who buy them the opportunity to clone their family dogs.

BioArts International, based in Mill Valley, California, is the only company in the world that has the licence for cloning dogs, cats and other endangered species, despite critics that condamne its ethics, saying that this is the first step towards cloning humans.

The company said in a press release on Wednesday that it will start its Best Friends Again program, which is a partnership between BioArts and the Sooam Biotech Research Foundation in South Korea.

The Best Briends Again includes several well known scientists, such as Hwang Woo Suk, who took part of the pilot program that cloned a male Afgan hound named Snuppy back in 2005. However, the South Korean scientist was discovered to have faked research and then suffered international disgrace, which again dragged criticism towards the program.

The auction for the five dog cloning service slots will take place online and will be held next month, as the general public will be able to buy them beginning with 100.000 dollars, BioArts Chief Executive Officer Lou Hawthorne said for The New York Times.

Low Hawthorne previously ran Genetic Savings & Clone, which offered to clone cats, but due to the high price they asked for it, 50.000 dollars, had to fold in 2006, as few were willing to pay so much. The CEO said that several studies conducted by his former company showed that the dog clonig market has potential.