Dutch bio affinity company expands GE Healthcare collaboration

One of the leading providers of antibody-based affinity purification technology has expanded its collaboration with GE Healthcare.

The move by Bio Affinity Company (BAC), based in The Netherlands, means the addition of new bioprocess affinity chromatography media to GE Healthcare's existing media range. The new media is used in the specific purification of antibody fragments containing the kappa light chain, based on BAC's CaptureSelect Fab Kappa ligand. The new media have been developed as part of GE Healthcare's Custom-Design Media (CDM) programme.

The provision of custom ligands is one of BAC's core businesses, which acts as a feeder into its bioprocess commercial supply business. This, and future programmes in collaboration with commercial partners such as GE Healthcare will form an important part of the growth of BAC.

BAC's CaptureSelect ligands offer enhanced stability and specificity compared to traditional affinity ligands, reducing often lengthy purification processes to a single step and resulting in higher throughput, reduced costs and fewer complications during the purification of biotherapeutics. The Fab Kappa ligand provides a unique affinity solution for an antibody sub-set that has previously been extremely difficult to purify. The new media is marketed as KappaSelect, in its custom media range, which also includes IgSelect for human IgG, AVB Sepharose High Performance for AAV and VIIISelect for Factor VIII production.

BAC ceo Laurens Sierkstra, said: "The CaptureSelect technology that we have developed offers real benefits in time, cost and quality, to the bioprocess industry. I am pleased that the technology has been made readily accessible to the wider community through our collaboration with GE Healthcare."

In addition to providing affinity products for large scale bioprocessing operations, BAC also works in partnership with biopharmaceutical companies to develop custom ligands for specific purification tasks.