Clean Cells buys mass-spec specialist Anaquant to build end-to-end biopharma testing
What's the deal? French biopharma quality control provider Clean CellsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has acquired AnaquantDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a French contract research organisation specialising in mass-spectrometry-based protein analysis. Clean Cells takes full ownership of Anaquant's brand, intellectual property, analytics platform, equipment, and client relationships. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Who's who? Clean Cells, founded in 2020 and a subsidiary of Clean BiologicsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, runs quality control and biological safety tests for biopharmaceutical products, produces cell banks and GMP-grade virus seed stock, and offers secure storage. Anaquant focuses on protein quantification and identification by mass spectrometry to support drug development.
What's the endgame? The deal builds an end-to-end analytical offering, spanning early-stage method development through to GMP-grade release testing. It strengthens Clean Cells' capabilities in protein characterisation — a critical layer of biopharmaceutical quality control and regulatory readiness.
Why it matters: Clean Cells also gains Anaquant's ReadyBeads technology, patented in 2017, a reference standard product line for Host Cell Protein (HCP) profiling. HCPs are residual impurities from manufacturing that need increasingly sophisticated analysis to support regulatory approval. The commercially proven technology will help clients generate more robust datasets for regulatory submissions.
What they're saying: "Protein characterization is a critical but often underestimated layer of biopharmaceutical quality control," said Laurent Claisse, chief executive officer of Clean Cells, adding that Anaquant gives clients "a level of protein characterization previously out of their reach."
Tanguy FortinDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Anaquant's founder and chief executive officer, said joining Clean Cells provides "the GMP infrastructure and commercial reach" needed "to serve clients across the full development lifecycle, not just at the research stage."
The signal: The acquisition reflects consolidation among European biopharma service providers as companies assemble integrated platforms that carry drug developers from early research through regulatory-ready testing under one roof.
Read more: Tech.eu
Image credit: IAEA Imagebank
