Firm hopes that acquisition will drive expansion in the field of sample preparation for multiple industries.

Swedish analytical and medicinal chemistry services company Biotage is buying MIP Technologies for SEK 16 million (about $2.23 million) up front. The deal will include further payments dependent on MIP sales through to the end of 2015.

Biotage believes that the acquisition of MIP will fuel its growth and expansion within the sample-preparation field and provide new opportunities for expansion and diversification into markets outside pharmaceuticals. “One of our ambitions going forward is to further develop our sample-prep business and drive our consumables sales to get a more even balance between the sale of instruments and consumables,” comments Torben Jörgensen, Biotage president and CEO.

MIP Technologies reported a SEK 13 million (roughly $1.81 million) turnover in 2009. The firm currently has 17 employees and specializes in the development of separations technologies using novel polymer chemistries including its molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) platform. Its technologies are commercialized for companies in a range of industries including pharmaceuticals, food, and beverages as well as for laboratories in the pharmaceuticals, food, environmental, and veterinary fields.

MIPs are engineered cross-linked polymers designed to exhibit high affinity and selectivity either toward a single compound or a family of related compounds. MIP reports that the polymers can bind to their target analytes present in complex matrices such as plasma, urine, muscle tissue, food matrices, environmental samples, or process solutions. MIPs are also capable of binding to trace levels of their target analytes even in the presence of large excess of other compounds that have similar physicochemical properties, the firm adds.

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