Three become one: SOLARBIOTECH, GPC Bio, and Eleszto Genetika mergeThree become one: SOLARBIOTECH, GPC Bio, and Eleszto Genetika merge

Biotechnology companies SOLARBIOTECH, GPC Bio, and Eleszto Genetika (EG) have merged under consolidated ownership and will operate as a unified vertically integrated organization.

SOLARBIOTECH, based in Norton, Virginia uses biomanufacturing technologies to develop products by using precision fermentation and downstream processing techniques. GPC Bio, based in La Rochelle, France, produces biomanufacturing equipment, and EG, from Budapest, Hungary, performs genetic modification for microbial platforms to aid production of target molecules.

Alex Berlin, CEO and CTO of SOLARBIOTECH, told BioProcess Insider that the merger will help lower costs for customers and accelerate timelines.

“We are now a vertically integrated organization that can take an idea or a concept from bench scale to commercial phase,” he said. “EG will primarily take care of strain engineering and early bioprocess development; SOLARBIOTECH of scale-up through pilot and demo scales to commercial scales; and GPC BIO will take care of plant engineering, automation, and equipment fabrication and upgrades when needed."

Berlin told us the companies have collaborated and cross trained to ensure a smooth merger. “Crosspollination is in the DNA of the vertically integrated organization,” he said. “Just hours before the acquisition of EG in Hungary was completed we had a team from Virginia closely collaborating in Budapest on two customers’ projects. The same with the engineering team in France. We have had personnel from Virginia trained in France on automation and upgrades deployed now in Virginia. Remote troubleshooting is often used to support operations at our plant in Virginia.”

Berlin identified challenges in the biomanufacturing space that this merger is poised to overcome. He said his company’s “engineered microbial strains are designed with the scale-up challenges in mind, which are often missed in non-integrated operations.”

He added that the integrated organization “closes the tech transfer gap, since we work closely with bioprocess developers and the engineering teams responsible for designing and building the commercial operations. These aspects are crucial for commercial success and are often overlooked in developing new biomanufactured products.”

When news of the integration broke, Zsolt Popsé, CEO of GPC Bio, said, “The integration of GPC Bio with EG and SOLARBIOTECH places us in a unique position to mitigate risk and accelerate growth in the biomanufacturing space.”