Clean Cells Anaquant acquisition adds mass spectrometry QC tools

Clean Cells has acquired Anaquant, a French contract research organization focused on mass-spectrometry-based bioanalysis, in a deal whose financial terms were not disclosed. The Clean Cells Anaquant acquisition gives the biopharma quality-control services provider additional protein characterization capabilities, an area tied to product release, regulatory submissions and manufacturing impurity analysis.

Clean Cells, founded in 2020 and owned by Clean Biologics, provides quality-control and biological safety testing for biopharmaceutical products, produces cell banks and GMP-grade BSL2 and BSL3 virus seed stock, and offers secure storage. The company also develops and validates custom analysis tools for clients.

Anaquant is a private CRO that specializes in protein quantification and identification using mass spectrometry for drug development programs. Under the transaction, Clean Cells takes full ownership of Anaquant’s brand, intellectual property, analytics platform, equipment and existing customer relationships.

What does Anaquant add to Clean Cells?

Anaquant adds standardized mass-spectrometry methods and a proprietary analytics platform aimed at protein characterization. Clean Cells said the deal expands its analytical platform from early method development through GMP-grade release testing, giving customers access to protein analysis that can support later regulatory filings.

Protein characterization is a quality-control step used to understand and verify biopharmaceutical products, including attributes that may affect safety, consistency and regulatory readiness. The company is positioning the acquisition as a way to bring that testing earlier into development programs, rather than reserving it for later-stage work.

Laurent Claisse, CEO of Clean Cells, said Anaquant brings expertise that matches rising demand in biopharmaceutical development. He said the acquired methods can help early-phase developers generate data that can become part of future regulatory submissions, and that bringing Anaquant’s work into Clean Cells strengthens the group’s analytical offering.

The deal also gives Clean Cells Anaquant’s ReadyBeads technology, a patented 2017 product line used as reference standards for host cell protein profiling and targeted quantification of drug product-specific host cell proteins. Host cell proteins are residual impurities left from manufacturing, and companies need increasingly precise analytical methods to show product quality and support regulatory approval.

Clean Cells said ReadyBeads is commercially proven and used worldwide, though it did not disclose revenue, customer count or product volumes for the line. The company said adding ReadyBeads should help clients build stronger datasets for regulatory submissions.

Tanguy Fortin, Anaquant’s CEO and founder, said the company was built to make mass-spectrometry-based protein characterization more accessible and reliable as a quality-control method in biopharma development. He said Clean Cells’ GMP infrastructure and commercial reach should allow Anaquant’s technology to serve clients beyond the research stage and across the development lifecycle.

The acquisition is a capability deal rather than a disclosed financing event: no purchase price, revenue figures, headcount, integration timetable or post-deal operating structure were announced. For Clean Cells, the strategic bet is clear enough: biopharma customers face more demanding analytical expectations, and owning mass spectrometry expertise gives the company more of the quality-control workflow in-house.

This story draws on original reporting from Tech.eu.