BAC Expands Collaboration With GE Healthcare With Launch Of Kappaselect

Naarden, The Netherlands, 03 November 2008 – BAC BV, the leading provider of antibody-based affinity purification technology, today announced the expansion of its collaboration with GE Healthcare with the addition of new bioprocess affinity chromatography media to GE Healthcare’s range of custom-designed media. The latest addition to the range is an affinity media for the specific purification of antibody fragments containing the kappa light chain, based on BAC’s CaptureSelect® Fab Kappa ligand. The new media have been developed as part of GE Healthcare’s Custom-Design Media (CDM) programme.

The provision of custom ligands is one of BAC’s core businesses, which acts as a feeder into its bioprocess commercial supply business. This, and future programmes in collaboration with commercial partners such as GE Healthcare will form an important part of the growth of BAC.

BAC’s CaptureSelect® ligands offer enhanced stability and specificity compared to traditional affinity ligands, reducing often lengthy purification processes to a single step and resulting in higher throughput, reduced costs and fewer complications during the purification of biotherapeutics. The Fab Kappa ligand provides a unique affinity solution for an antibody sub-set that has previously been extremely difficult to purify. The new media is marketed by GE Healthcare, as KappaSelect, in its custom media range, which also includes IgSelect for human IgG, AVB Sepharose High Performance for AAV and VIIISelect for Factor VIII production.

Laurens Sierkstra, CEO of BAC, commented: “The CaptureSelect technology that we have developed offers real benefits in time, cost and quality, to the bioprocess industry. I am pleased that the technology has been made readily accessible to the wider community through our collaboration with GE Healthcare.”

In addition to providing affinity products for large scale bioprocessing operations, BAC also works in partnership with biopharmaceutical companies to develop custom ligands for specific purification tasks. A range of CaptureSelect affinity media for life science research is available directly from BAC’s web shop (www.captureselect.com/shop).

About BAC

BAC BV offers a wide range of products and services for affinity purification of biological materials from complex media. The Company’s proprietary CaptureSelect® affinity ligands, based on Camelid single chain antibody fragments, have been proven to be suitable in a wide range of biological applications including Life Science Research and Biomanufacturing. BAC’s CaptureSelect ligands are available through the Company’s custom design service, or as off-the-shelf bioprocess products through commercial partners. CaptureSelect ligands for research applications are available direct from BAC through the Company’s web shop.

CaptureSelect® ligand technology is based on selection of single chain antibody fragments with desirable chromatographic characteristics including robustness, high specificity and flexibility. Suitable ligands are cloned and expressed in high-titers through an animal-free Saccharomyces cerevisiae-based process.

BAC BV was established in 1995 as a Unilever subsidiary. Currently the Company employs 35 people with an R&D laboratory facility in Leiden and a state-of-the-art ISO 9001 certified manufacturing plant in Naarden, the Netherlands. For more information about BAC, visit our website at www.bac.nl. For more information about CaptureSelect® products, visit our website at www.captureselect.com

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