Natrix Separations Inc. announced development agreements with Merck, known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, and Sanofi to advance Natrix’s new membrane-based protein A platform for antibody purification.

The Natrix protein A platform is expected to pave the way for a new generation of more flexible, highly-productive single-use based biologics production facilities for both batch and continuous processes. The platform is predicted to increase purification productivity by a factor of up to 10x, while reducing both cost of goods and net present cost by up to 40 per cent.

Natrix CEO John Chickosky, commented, “Natrix has developed and commercialized single-use hydrogel membranes for impurity removal in polishing purification steps. This new development work for our protein A products now provides additional capability to the toolbox for the fully single-use process for antibody production. The industry has long sought downstream solutions to match the innovation that has benefitted upstream operations. Natrix, working with our collaborators, believes we will soon be able to fill that gap.”

Merck and Natrix previously collaborated on the development of Natrix’s membrane purification products, including lab-scale demonstration that Natrix protein A materials achieve capacity, selectivity and other critical performance characteristics equal to or better than best in class Protein A resins.

Under the terms of the agreements, investments by Merck and Sanofi, along with technology collaboration between the individual collaborators and Natrix, will accelerate Natrix’s multi-million dollar platform commercialization program. Specific financial terms were not disclosed.

Separately, Natrix has entered into an agreement with Scil Proteins GmbH for the engineering and development of the proprietary protein A ligand that will be integrated with Natrix’s membrane technology.