Asahi Glass buys German biopharmaceutical CMO Biomeva

Asahi Glass Co Ltd (AGC), the Japanese manufacturer of glass, chemicals and high-tech materials, has acquired all of the shares of Biomeva GmbH (Biomeva) from Biomeva Holding GmbH. Biomeva is one of the leading biopharmaceutical contract manufacturing organisations (CMO) in Europe. With this acquisition, AGC’s life science business will be able to expand its geographic coverage and offer a wider range of capacities.

Based in the Bio Cluster City of Heidelberg, Germany, Biomeva has almost 25 years of experience in providing contract development and manufacturing services using microbial expression technology to European and other international customers. Biomeva’s services include process development for highly efficient therapeutic protein expression, cGMP compliant fermentation, purification and bulk filling, as well as analytical testing and cell banking.

Dr Thomas Pultar, CEO of Biomeva, said, “By combining Biomeva’s capabilities and AGC’s large scale manufacturing capacities we will generate a new and strong international microbial CMO, offering the complete services from process development to large scale market supply. To me, this is a perfect synergy between Biomeva’s strength in clinical manufacturing and AGC’s expertise and capacity for commercial production.”

Under the management policy AGC plus, the AGC Group has designated life science business as one of its strategic areas. The synergy generated through the business integration of AGC and Biomeva being an important addition, the AGC Group is dedicated to speeding up and expanding its biopharmaceutical contract services business.

Biomeva offers comprehensive services around cGMP manufacturing and processing of biopharmaceuticals using microorganisms (E. coli and yeast) including cell banking, process development and process optimisation (high cell density fermentation, downstream processing and chromatographic purification).