Bioprocessing start-up acquired by GE Healthcare

GE Healthcare has announced the completion of its acquisition of a bioprocessing start-up, Puridify — which is developing a nanofiber-based platform purification technology for biopharmaceutical production.

“Puridify has spent the last three years developing the industrial FibroSelect technology in close collaboration with leading biomanufacturers with promising results,” said Oliver Hardick, chief executive officer, Puridify. “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.”

Puridify has collaborated with several major biopharmaceutical manufacturers in the development of FibroSelect, which is expected to bring productivity improvements in the process development (PD) phase and small-scale manufacturing for a wide variety of biopharmaceutical applications.

“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,” added Jan Makela, general manager, BioProcess, GE Healthcare Life Sciences. “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.”

GE will acquire Puridify and all 17 employees will join GE Healthcare Life Sciences’ BioProcess business. The Puridify team will remain at their current location in Stevenage, UK, which will serve as a small research hub for BioProcess.