JSR To Acquire Cell-Line Technology Company Selexis
JSR Corporation, the parent company of JSR Life Sciences, has agreed to acquire Selexis SA, a Geneva, Switzerland-based provider of mammalian cell-line generation technologies. Once completed, this transaction will mark the second recent biotechnology addition to the JSR group of companies following JSR Corporation’s acquisition of KBI Biopharma, a contract biologics manufacturer, in 2015.
The Selexis SURE CHO-M cell line is a mammalian cell line that is derived from CHO-K1 cells and used for the production of therapeutic recombinant proteins and monoclonal antibodies. Therapeutics that are generated using Selexis SURE CHO-M cells are used in clinical-trial material supply and marketed products.
KBI Biopharma is investing $30 million to expand its biopharmaceutical manufacturing capacity and capabilities at its facilities in Durham, North Carolina and Boulder, Colorado. KBI is building commercial mammalian cell-culture manufacturing capability within its Durham facility, which also houses cGMP cell-culture manufacturing lines for clinical production. Upon completion of the project, the commercial manufacturing line will include 2 X 2,000-L single-use bioreactors and recovery and downstream purification suites.
In Boulder, KBI currently offers commercial manufacturing capacity for microbial processes at 1,500-L scale and is adding additional smaller-scale capacity by building a second manufacturing train with 300-L scale fermentation capability using single-use technologies.
This expansion follows KBI’s acquisition of a cell-therapy manufacturing facility in the Houston, Texas area in February 2016.
KBI is a subsidiary of JSR Corporatoin, which provides specialized materials and products to the biotechnology industry. KBI also plans to expand in Europe with the opening of an analytical services laboratory at JSR’s subsidiary, JSR Micro NV, in Leuven, Belgium in the first quarter of 2018. The Belgium analytical lab will also facilitate the continued collaboration between KBI and JSR Life Sciences (JLS), a business unit of JSR Corporation, to expand and enhance JLS’ Amsphere A3 product line.
Source: JSR