Therapure will continue to develop and market the Expanded Bed Adsorption (EBA) chromatography platform under the name PlasmaCap EBA after acquiring the technology as part of Upfront’s human plasma fractionation business.
The agreement sees Upfront exit the biopharma world and instead focus its attentions on its BioMine business line for the food and feed ingredients industry.
The news comes three years after the firm sold its Rhobust chromatography tech to DSM Biologics and Upfront’s CEO Michael Pålsson welcomed this additional divestment as a “major milestone” for the firm.
He told Biopharma-Reporter.com the sale will secure funding for Upfront’s BioMine technology which will see the firm involved with “everything to do with proteins outside of biopharmaceuticals.”
However, he continued, Upfront is still going to be a supplier to Therapure as it is to DSM, offering the interface and the know-how to the company.
Financial details of the acquisition have not been divulged.
PlasmaCap EBA
The technology works using high density resins in expanded bed adsorption (EBA) chromatography in order to capture plasma proteins directly from plasma or fractionated plasma materials.
For Therapure, the acquisition comes as a boost to its biomanufacturing contract development business launched last year following the completion of a biologics wing at its Toronto, Canada facility that boasts three bioreactors, 200m2 of cleanroom space and purification capabilities.
With this acquisition, CEO Nick Green said Therapure possesses a technology “that is highly efficient and less damaging to the end product compared to conventional methods of fractionation.”
He added the system “allows for a more cost-effective process to manufacture plasma proteins” and can add value to its client’s offerings.