Polyplus acquires French company enabling customized DNA vectors

03-Feb-2022 - Last updated on 03-Feb-2022 at 14:02 GMT

Related tags vector Gene therapy plasmid DNA

Polyplus, a provider of transfection reagents, has acquired e-Zyvec, a France-based provider of DNA design and production services for tailor-made DNA vectors to expand expertise in plasmid DNA vector engineering.

Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

The acquisition of e-Zyvec is critical to Polyplus in terms of portfolio diversification - it gives it plasmid DNA engineering capability that will provide synergies to its customers in terms of process efficiency.

“Polyplus is evolving and growing, and this latest acquisition is an example of our strategy in action. We will continue to build out the existing portfolio, which is strong on its own, by adding complementary activities that make us a more effective and comprehensive partner to our customers, with a focus on expanding process economics optimization efforts for cell and gene therapy developers and manufacturers,” said Mario Philips, CEO of the Strasbourg headquartered company.

e-Zyvec’s patented plasmid design technology, he continued, uses interchangeable bricks of DNA (segments of plasmid sequences) that can be assembled to form the plasmids matching customers objectives in terms of process efficiency for the most challenging gene therapy, biomanufacturing and research programs. "The technology enables the generation of plasmids variants for in-vitro screening at an unmatched speed, therefore considerably reducing development time.”

Expansion program

Last year saw Polyplus investing for greater scale.

Following funding in April 2020 from Warburg Pincus and ArchiMed, in January 2021, Polyplus initiated construction of Vectura, a 4,000m2 HQ and central facility in Strasbourg. Furthermore, in March last year, it acquired Biowire, a firm specializing in supporting life sciences tool and reagent companies to expand into Asia-Pacific.

In August 2021, Polyplus launched a transfection reagent for large scale viral vector production. FectoVIR-AAV GMP was added to its transfection reagent portfolio to help manufacturers alleviate major pain points with linear process scalability and flexibility. “Users will be able to work from small scale process development stages to improve AAV production in suspension cell culture systems and more easily transition into large-scale GMP manufacturing activities,” explained the developer.