French biopharma quality control services provider Clean Cells today announces its acquisition of French company Anaquant, a specialist in mass-spectrometry-based bioanalysis.
Founded in 2020, Clean Cells, a subsidiary of Clean Biologics, offers:
- Quality control and biological safety tests for biopharmaceutical products to assist in regulatory compliance,
- Production of cell banks and GMP-grade BSL2/BSL3 virus seed stock,
- Supply of secure storage for these products, alongside development and validation of bespoke analysis tools.
Anaquant is a private Contract Research Organization (CRO) specialized in protein quantification and identification by Mass Spectrometry (MS) for better drug development.
As part of the acquisition, Clean Cells takes entire ownership of Anaquant’s brand, intellectual property, proprietary mass spectrometry-based analytics platform, equipment and existing client relationships, strengthening Clean Cells’ capabilities in protein characterization, a critical requirement in biopharmaceutical quality control and regulatory readiness.
“Anaquant is highly complementary to Clean Cells, bringing unique expertise that addresses a growing need in biopharmaceutical development. Protein characterization is a critical but often underestimated layer of biopharmaceutical quality control,” said Laurent Claisse, CEO of Clean Cells.
“Anaquant has developed standardised mass spectrometry methods that are accessible to early-phase developers and generate valuable data from the earliest stages, laying the foundation for future regulatory submissions.
Transferring this expertise to Clean Cells strengthens our analytical platform and gives our clients access to a level of protein characterization previously out of their reach. This is exactly the kind of scientific depth we want to build into the group."
Under the deal, Clean Cells also obtains Anaquant’s ReadyBeads™ technology (patented 2017). This is a proprietary reference standard product line for Host Cell Protein (HCP) profiling and targeted quantification of drug product-specific HCPs. HCPs are residual impurities from the manufacturing process that require increasingly sophisticated analytical methods to support product quality and regulatory approval.
The addition of ReadyBeads, a commercially proven technology used worldwide, will enable Clean Cells to help clients generate more robust datasets that strengthen regulatory submissions.
The acquisition creates an end-to-end analytical offering for Clean Cells, spanning from early-stage method development through to GMP-grade release testing.
"Anaquant was built on the idea that mass spectrometry-based protein characterization should be as accessible and as reliable as any other standard quality control method in biopharmaceutical development. Over the years, we have proven that the technology works and that we can provide our clients with valuable data for their programs. Joining Clean Cells means we can now take this a step further. The GMP infrastructure and commercial reach that Clean Cells brings are exactly what we need to serve clients across the full development lifecycle, not just at the research stage," said Tanguy Fortin, CEO and founder of Anaquant.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
Lead image: Magnific.
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