Avitide Raises Funds For “On-Demand” Affinity Processing

“Disruptive” and “de-risked” are two adjectives that rarely modify the same subject. But Avitide Inc. maintains that its new on-demand affinity processing technology deserves both. By applying novel ligands on an industry-trusted resin, the start-up based in Lebanon, NH, says it can create, inside of three months, a high-yield process for purifying just about any biological product. It's a bold claim, because it often takes two to three years to discover and develop a resin capable of separating a specific molecule out of solution. The only way around this problem has been for manufacturers to instead perform a four-to-five step chromatography process, accepting that each step wastes some of the precious product or lowers its purity.

“With our method, you don't have to sacrifice purity for yield when manufacturing a biologic,” says Kevin Isett, PhD, CEO of Avitide and its co-founder alongside Tillman Gerngross, PhD. Gerngross,...