Separate together: Biotage buying purification firm PhyNexus

Swedish separations firm Biotage will add lab scale purification technology through its acquisition of PhyNexus.

Financial details of the deal have not been divulged, but the California-based private firm PhyNexus has agreed to be acquired by Biotage this week.

PhyNexus will bring an enabling automation platform based on Dual Flow Chromatography to Biotage’s bioprocess offering and increase the firm’s place in the downstream space.

Image: iStock/macgyverhh

The technology enables miniaturized and parallel automated work-flows to address different laboratory purification processes. The Dual Flow Chromatography tip technology, meanwhile draws up samples, processes them and re-deposits them into sample wells.

According to the firm, the platform technology delivers high throughput purification capability with improved results across multiple applications in biologics drug discovery, research and development, and diagnostic applications.

Biotage works across multiple industries, but CEO Torben Jörgensen told BioProcess Insider that only 5% of its service solutions for analytical chemistry comes from the biopharma space. However, the acquisition will dramatically increase this.

“This acquisition is for lab scale only but we are invested in a small company called Chreto that is working on single use technology for large scale purification of monoclonal antibodies,” he said.

The firm invested DKK 15 million ($2.3 million) in Danish firm Chreto in 2016, gaining access to the firm’s purification platform.

“Investing in biomolecules is in line with the market trend of an increasing number of drugs based on large molecules such as for example peptides and proteins,” Jörgensen said at the time.

“We already have products for drug development based on peptides and are now taking one step further towards strengthening Biotage’s future offering in the biomolecule purification area.”