The acquisition will bring Sartorius a range of transfection reagents and plasmids and, at €2.4 ($2.6) billion, is the largest bolt-on for the bioprocess vendor.

The deal announced Friday will see Sartorius subsidiary Sartorius Stedim Biotech (SSB) buy France-based Polyplus, adding a range of components used in the production of viral vectors and around 270 staff members.

René Fáber, who recently tookover as CEO of SSB from Joachim Kreuzburg, described Polyplus’ offerings as “highly complementary to our portfolio, in particular to our offering of cell culture media and critical components for the development and manufacture of advanced therapies,” whicle acknowledging the deal brings “strong synergies with our portfolio of downstream solutions for the manufacture of gene therapeutics.”

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Polyplus itself has built-up its offerings over the past few years through a series of bolt-on acquisitions. The firm acquired Belgian plasmid DNA maker Xpress Biologics last December and plasmid engineering company e-Zyvec in February 2022. The privately-owned company is expected to generate sales revenue in the upper double-digit million-euro range in 2023.

“Solutions of Polyplus are highly complementary to our portfolio, in particular to our offering of cell culture media and critical components for the development and manufacture of advanced therapies, and there are also strong synergies with our portfolio of downstream solutions for the manufacture of gene therapeutics, such as our monoliths used for virus, plasmid, or mRNA purification,” a Sartorius spoesperson told us.

“The market for cell and gene therapies is dynamically growing and viral vectors are needed to deliver the genes of interest into cells. The development pipeline of such therapies has been growing strongly and more and more are reaching major milestones. Sartorius and Polyplus together will be excellently positioned to play a significant role in this dynamic field.”

The deal is expected to close during the third quarter of 2023.

Sartorius bolt-ons

Since Sartorius’ merger with Stedim Biotech in 2007, the firm has grown its bioprocess offering through a series of bolt-on deals.

Acquisitions over the past two years include: media firm Xell AG for €50 million, a majority stake in CellGenix for $118 million, Novasep’s chromatography division, a stake in Automated Lab Solutions (ALS), and Albumedix for £415 million.

At €2.4 billion, Polyplus will become Sartorius’ largest-ever acquisition, but unlikely its last. Last year, the firm said it had a warchest of around €10 billion ready to mobilize for the right M&A opportunities, and was momentarily-linked with an $11 billion takeover of Maravai LifeSciences.