Astrea expands MA presence to meet chromatography demand

Astrea Bioseparations said the decision to build a chromatography facility in Canton, Massachusetts reflects the growing demand in North America.

The firm announced the decision to expand its manufacturing capabilities in the US at Biotech Week Boston (BWB), which kicked off today. While financial details of the expansion remain undisclosed, the 12,000 square-foot facility will provide increased production and warehousing capacity for Astrea’s chromatography solution services.

“It’s not so much the increase of volume demand, more the type of solution,” a spokesperson for Astrea told BioProcess Insider.

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“Within the cell and gene therapy (CGT) market the current chromatography solutions that are being used were developed in the past for other methods, (monoclonal antibodies for example), these weren’t designed for large modalities with the result that target recovery and process time are far from optimal. The newly released nanofiber chromatography devices provide a fit-for-purpose solution for large modalities resulting in a more efficient,  cost effective, less wasteful solution geared towards effective purification of large molecules.”

The company referenced North America’s growing demand for its chromatography solutions as the driver to increase capacity and said the site will expand the firm’s US footprint by over fourfold. The facility will include cleanroom laboratories for column packing activities, warehousing, column assembly spaces, and offices.

According to Astrea, the dedicated column packing cleanrooms will facilitate increased production capacity for pre-packed column products and services. Furthermore, the company said this will mean the facility can produce at “record lead times” of three to five weeks for off-the-shelf products and six to eight weeks for large-scale resin orders.

The company also said the facility will become a hub for Astrea’s North American customers, who will also benefit from local technical expertise and customer support.

“North America is a major market for Astrea Bioseparations, having increased capacity for stock location in Boston, MA, means that we can be responsive to our customers for off the shelf products, speeding up delivery times for our customers,” the spokesperson said.

M&A activity

The company has undergone various acquisition activity over the years. In November 2019 , investment firm KKR said it intended to purchase Prometic Bioseparations from Liminal BioSciences. Two months later, the deal closed with renamed Astrea becoming the first firm in KKR’s Gamma Biosciences portfolio of subsidiaries.

The company then acquired chromatography column firm Essential Life Solutions (ELS) in September 2020 and, one month later, Gamma bought chromatographic separation firm Nanopareli for an undisclosed fee.

In January, Astrea acquired Delta Precision, a manufacturer of chromatography columns, and predicted it would expand the operation further due to high demand. And a month later, Astrea announced it was set to be acquired by Biotage for $190 million.