Repligen acquires biomaterials tech firm Tantti

Bioprocess vendor Repligen will gain Tantti’s macroporous chromatography beads used in the purification of viral vectors, viruses, nucleic acids, and other modalities. The financials of this transaction have not been disclosed.

With the transaction expected to close by the end of 2024, Repligen will welcome all 55 employees at Taiwan-based Tantti. Additionally, “the senior leadership team of Tantti will continue to lead the organization as part of the Repligen team,” a spokesperson told BioProcess Insider.

“The industry needs high throughput and high-capacity purification products, and we believe the Tantti-Avitide pairing is the solution to delivering on this and accelerating our expansion into purification of larger biomolecules (including viral vectors, viruses, and nucleic acids),” the spokesperson said.

“New resin launches are planned before year end, with high customer interest. The Tantti platform provides capability to expand from affinity offerings to other chromatography types such as ion exchange chromatography (IEX) and hydrophobic interaction chromatography (HIC).”

According to the firm, the DuloCore platform combines the high-throughput performance of membranes with the rapid mass transfer of monoliths in a convenient and flexible bead format.

Repligen acquired affinity purification ligand manufacturer Avitide, bolstering its protein business in 2021 for $150 million. Tantti will work with Avitide using its AVIPure adeno-associated virus (AAV) affinity resins to improve molecule selectivity and increase efficiencies to address downstream bottleneck challenges and the scalability concerns of manufacturers.

There are currently two Tantti manufacturing sites in the Luzhu District of Taiwan. “These [facilities] will continue operating; once we close, we intend to establish ‘dual site’ manufacturing over time to expand capacity and ensure supply-chain robustness. Throughout our process Tantti has continued to manage its other relationships while focusing on Repligen as its main bioprocessing partner.”

This deal complements the firm’s partnership with Purolite that was announced in February 2024. Launching Praesto 70 CH1, an agarose-based affinity resin for the purification of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), the partnership aims to reduce process time, the number of unit operations, and raw material and buffer costs to deliver a robust and efficient manufacturing process.