Extension of the Sartorius cell culture media business with a focus on media for gene therapeutics and vaccines

The life science company Sartorius, through its subgroup Sartorius Stedim Biotech, acquired cell culture specialist Xell AG headquartered in Bielefeld, Germany. Xell AG develops, produces, and markets media and feed supplements for cell cultures, especially for manufacturing viral vectors that are used in gene therapeutics and vaccines. Beyond these media, the company offers various analytical services for characterizing, screening, and quantifying media components, as well as for optimizing media composition.

Xell AG has so far been privately owned, employs around 35 people, and is expected to generate sales revenue of approximately 5 million euros at strong growth rates and a substantial two-digit EBITDA margin for the full year of 2021. Recently, a major state-of-the-art capacity expansion was completed at the
company's headquarters. The contractual parties agreed on a purchase price of around 50 million euros in addition to two earn-out components contingent upon the achievement of defined revenue targets in 2022 to 2025.

“With this acquisition, we are expanding our current media offering specifically by specialized media for manufacturing viral vectors and, additionally, in the area of media analytics. At the same time, we are accelerating the expansion of our production network in this fast-growing area,” said René Fáber, a member of the Sartorius Executive Board and Head of the Bioprocess Solutions Division. “I would like to cordially welcome the Xell team to Sartorius and am looking forward to our collaboration in this demanding time.”

"Sartorius, with its strong sales team and complementary product portfolio, offers an excellent platform for further expansion, and we are extremely excited about our joint future development," added Stefan Northoff, CEO of Xell AG.

About Xell

Xell AG is a globally active biotech company with a strong focus on cell culture media as well as associated analytical and process services. Within ten successful years in the market, Xell has established itself as an experienced, reliable partner for the biopharmaceutical industry, providing efficient off-the-shelf media and feed products, customized developments, as well as solid analyses.

About Sartorius

The Sartorius Group is a leading international partner of life science research and the biopharmaceutical industry. With innovative laboratory instruments and consumables, the Group’s Lab Products & Services Division concentrates on serving the needs of laboratories performing research and quality control at pharma and biopharma companies and those of academic research institutes. The Bioprocess Solutions Division with its broad product portfolio focusing on single-use solutions helps customers to manufacture biotech medications and vaccines safely and efficiently. The Group has been annually growing by double digits on average and has been regularly expanding its portfolio by acquisitions of complementary technologies. In fiscal 2020, the company earned sales revenue of some 2.34 billion euros. At the end of 2020, nearly 11,000 people were employed at the Group’s approximately 60 manufacturing and sales sites, serving customers around the globe.

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