Merck to acquire Burlington-based Natrix Separations

Merck, Darmstadt Germany, is acquiring Natrix Separations Inc, Burlington ON, a provider of hydrogel membrane products used to eliminate impurities during bioprocessing and accelerate the production of monoclonal antibodies and vaccines. Natrix markets both an anion exchange membrane and cation exchange membrane and is developing additional products to enable a fully single-use, full-scale biological purification process — an area of increasing importance to Merck customers. It’s estimated that the market for next-generation processing will triple between 2020 and 2025, increasing plant productivity, facility flexibility, cost efficiencies and reduced risk. Natrix is a privately held company founded in 2005. It has a large portfolio of intellectual property and is expanding rapidly into several vertical sectors including pharma, biopharma, animal health, nutraceutical and other industrial purification markets