GE Healthcare Completes Acquisition of Bioprocessing Start-Up

GE Healthcare has completed the acquisition of Puridify, a UK-based bioprocessing start-up focused on a nanofiber-based platform purification technology for biopharmaceutical production, GE Healthcare announced on Nov. 28, 2017.

As part of the acquisition, GE Healthcare will gain Puridify’s technology, FibroSelect, which is complementary to the bead resins and chromatography membranes used in downstream bioprocessing. The technology offers faster mass transfer, scalability, and ease of use, according to the companies.

In addition, GE Healthcare will acquire Puridify’s 17 employees, who will join GE Healthcare Life Sciences’ BioProcess business and will remain at their current location in Stevenage, UK. The site will serve as a small research hub for the BioProcess business.

Puridify’s technology is the result of collaboration with several major biopharmaceutical manufacturers. The platform is expected to bring productivity improvements in the process development phase and in small-scale manufacturing for a variety of biopharmaceutical applications. GE Healthcare will invest further to commercialize Puridify’s platform and fully integrate it into the range of bioprocess purification products already available at GE.

“The technology that Puridify has been developing gives GE access to exciting technology that could give considerable improvements for some customers in their purification step. The early feedback from collaborators has been positive. Today’s investment in this new technology is further evidence of GE’s strong commitment to innovation in the production of biopharmaceuticals to the benefit of our customers and of patients world-wide,” said Jan Makela, general manager, BioProcess, GE Healthcare Life Sciences, in a company press release.

“Puridify has spent the last three years developing the industrial FibroSelect technology in close collaboration with leading biomanufacturers with promising results. We are excited to take this next step as part of GE Healthcare, with the full support and experience associated with one of the industry leaders in this field. Our goal is to introduce significant improvements to bioprocessing and being part of GE helps us to maximize this opportunity. This deal gives full recognition to Puridify’s development team and to the strong potential of the FibroSelect technology platform,” said Oliver Hardick, CEO, Puridify, in the press release.

Since its founding in 2014, Puridify has been privately funded by leading venture capital investors, Touchstone Innovations and SR One, with additional support from University College London Business.

Source: GE Healthcare