Sartorius Group, a German pharma and lab equipment supplier, through its French listed subgroup Sartorius Stedim Biotech, has agreed to acquire privately-held biotech company Albumedix for a price of around £415 million.

Based in Nottingham, UK, Albumedix provides recombinant albumin-based solutions.

According to Sartorius, recombinant human albumin is a major component for the biopharma industry, which is needed for multiple applications, including as an animal-free additive to cell culture media and for the stabilization of viral therapies and vaccines.

Established in 1984, Sartorius has over 100 employees and is expected to earn revenue of around £33 million this year.

Jonas S. Møller — Albumedix CEO said: “We are delighted to be joining forces with Sartorius and look forward to accelerating our ambitious growth plans in delivering critical solutions to our global customers. We have been highly impressed with Sartorius’ knowledge and capabilities in the bioprocessing markets, and we are excited to join this purposeful journey.

“We believe Sartorius will bring tremendous value in strengthening our market reach and broadening our innovation capacity, as well as significantly scaling up our existing platform.”

Albumedix will become a part of Sartorius’ bioprocess solutions unit. Its existing site in Nottingham that is spread over 72,000sft will be used as a center of excellence for innovation and GMP-compliant production of highly important raw materials.

René Fáber — Sartorius member of the Executive Board for the bioprocess solutions division said: “Albumedix will be an important addition to Sartorius’ advanced therapy solutions, particularly regarding our cell culture media business, as it will enable us to strengthen our position as a relevant supplier of innovative chemically defined media and critical ancillary materials.

“This market offers high growth potential due to the increasing regulatory requirements as well as rising demand for the use of recombinant human albumin in near-patient applications. Albumedix will also add important formulation excipients to our vaccine production solutions, allowing us to expand our existing customer relationships and forge new ones.”

The deal, which is subject to receipt of regulatory approval, is likely to close by the end of Q3 2022.

  Albumedix, Jonas S. Møller, Nottingham, Pharma acquisition news, René Fáber, Sartorius, Sartorius Stedim Biotech, United Kingdom