Brooks continues to build in biobanking with Nexus Biosystems buy

01-Aug-2011 - Last updated on 02-Aug-2011 at 08:18 GMT

The pharma biobanking and compound management services sector welcomed its newest member last week with Brooks Automation’s acquisition of Nexus Biosystems.

The $79m (€54m) takeover is the second Brooks, a supplier of automation, vacuum and instrumentation, has made in the drug biobanking space this year behind Manchester, UK-based RTS Life Sciences that it bought in April.

Nexus and RTS provide biobanks technologies that automate the storage and extraction of drug compounds, blood, saliva, DNA, biologics in a controlled temperature environment for quality assessment purposes.

Brooks’ CFO, Martin Headley, told Outsourcing-pharma.com the biobanking market’s rapid growth rate, between 20 and 30 per cent a year, was a key motivation for both the Nexus and RTS deals.

“[We] concluded that the acquisition of leading players in this fragmented market would provide the base from which to introduce Brooks’ technologies to meet increasingly demanding customer requirements.”

Biologics-based demand

Headley also expects demand for sample storage technologies to increase as the drug industry continues to evolve.

“With the increased emphasis on biologic based drugs as well as the developments in personalized medicines, there is a growth in the storing of biological samples including blood, DNA and saliva.

“The growth in the market today is expected to be for the storage of a broader range of samples at lower temperatures – ideally below the Glass point where biological growth is suspended.”

The trend will be reflected in the type of companies RTS and Nexus supply according to Headley who forecast that developers like Amgen, Genentech and Genzyme will join Big Pharma companies on its roster of customers.

Integration and rationalisation

He also spoke about Brooks’ integration strategy, explaining that while the plan is to increase R&D investment the firm will also “rationalize the supporting infrastructure previously required to support significant operations in California, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

“Brooks will continue to have a presence in each of these locations, as well as continuing existing sales and service operations in Germany, Japan and on the East Coast in the US.”