Repligen Acquires Chromatography Technology Platform

Repligen Corporation (Waltham, MA) has acquired the assets of BioFlash Partners, LLC (Marlborough, MA), including a technology platform for producing prepacked plug-and-play chromatography columns. This technology is designed to enable economical production of chromatography columns in a format that is ready for use in the production of a broad range of biopharmaceuticals including monoclonal antibodies, vaccines, and recombinant proteins.

The terms of the acquisition include an upfront payment of $1.8 million, a contingent milestone, and royalties based on product sales. The global market for chromatography media used in the production of biopharmaceuticals is estimated to be approximately $500 million.

A product offering based on this technology was recently launched under the brand name Opus. The Opus products are offered in a range of column diameters and bed heights and can be prepacked with commercially available chromatography resins including immobilized Protein A. Plug-and-play chromatography columns have the potential to improve the speed of process development and reduce the cost of biopharmaceutical manufacturing by decreasing the time associated with the set-up, cleaning, and validation of traditional manufacturing technologies.