Sartorius Stedim Biotech, and SAFC Biosciences, a business segment of SAFC and member of theSigma-Aldrich group, both leading suppliers to the biopharmaceutical industry,announced the signing of a global partnership agreement that combines Sartorius StedimBiotech.s (SSB) expertise in filtration and liquid handling systems with SAFC Biosciences.proficiency in development and manufacturing of cell culture media and downstream purificationproducts. The alliance is expected to provide more robust and comprehensive solutions tobiopharmaceutical manufacturers. The companies will combine their expertise in generating application data on filter and mixingperformance with critical purification buffers and cell culture media. Similarly, extractable andleachable data will be generated with buffers and media, and filters and biobag combinations.In addition, SAFC expects to utilize SSB technology for storage and mixing of cell culture mediato optimize its fluid/powder handling systems. According to the agreement, each company willoffer its products with the assistance and support of its partner, working together to better servecustomers in solution creation, validation support, process improvement, technical support andproblem solving. Additionally, the strength of the partnership.s combined technical resources willcreate a larger range of integrated manufacturing solutions and a wider array of options forbiopharmaceutical manufacturing customers. Reinhard Vogt, Executive Vice President and board member of Sartorius Stedim Biotechacknowledges the agreement as an essential milestone in expanding the full potential of singleusetechnologies for the benefit of the biopharmaceutical industry. “This additional capability is instrumental for offering fully integrated cell culture media storage and mixing solutions. Forcustomers, this partnership will yield a powerful combination of fluid management andliquid/powder systems and help them to enhance the efficiency of their cell culture processes.With this agreement, we are moving one step closer to the reality of a ‘totally disposablefactory’ with integrated technologies and control systems.” Archie Cullen, SAFC Vice President Global Sales, explained the benefits for SAFC: “SartoriusStedim Biotech offers SAFC Biosciences the opportunity to partner with a market leader inprocess and single-use technologies development, and will enable us to provide integrated,single-use systems to the global biopharmaceutical cell culture community. This agreementenhances our position as the cell culture partner with the widest range of highly customizedproducts and services. It further demonstrates that our customer intimacy approach helps uslead as the biopharmaceutical industry’s “responsive expert.”
