W.R. Grace & Co. said it has agreed to sell product lines associated with its chromatography instruments, columns, and related laboratory products businesses to four separate buyers in deals whose values were not disclosed.
Grace added that it will retain three growing service lines for the pharmaceutical and nutraceutical industries that are aligned with the company’s growth plans, while concentrating on its core materials science and manufacturing capabilities.
Going forward, Grace said, it will continue to supply Vydac® and Davisil® media for process chromatography, Syloid® FP excipients for drug formulations, and custom manufacturing of regulatory starting materials and intermediates.
“Grace has determined that the best way to ensure that former and future customers are provided with high-value products and first-class service is to move these laboratory product lines to companies for which they are a better match,” said Robert Gatte, vp, chief technologist, and general manager of Grace’s Discovery Sciences business unit.
To that end, Grace said, it has agreed to sell its flash chromatography and evaporative light-scattering detector (ELSD) instrument business to Buchi, a division of Buchi Labortechnik, a Swiss manufacturer and global supplier of laboratory equipment to the pharma, chemicals, and food/beverage industries.
The sale to Buchi includes Reveleris® Purification Systems, GraceResolv™, and Reveleris® Flash Cartridges, as well as Alltech® ELSD 3300 instrumentation. Grace is now the exclusive supplier of media for use in these flash cartridge brands by Buchi.
Grace also agreed to sell its line of analytical high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) columns, preparative columns, and packing equipment and services to Dr. Maisch GmbH, a German company specializing in HPLC.
The sale to Dr. Maisch includes Exsil™, Modsil™, and Exmere™ Media, the Alltech® HPLC column brands Adsorbosphere™, Allsphere™, Brava™, Econosphere™, GraceSmartTM, Platinum™, and VisionHT brands. Grace will continue to supply media and provide media bonding services for these column brands.
Also included in the purchase are the MODcol® brands, including Spring® Preparative Column Hardware, MultiPacker® packing equipment, and packing services.
Grace said that additional HPLC column brands, including Vydac®, will be sold exclusively by U.K.-based Hichrom, a manufacturer and distributor of HPLC and ultra-HPLC columns and accessories.
In addition to selling Vydac® analytical columns, Hichrom will acquire Grace’s Alltima®, AllsepTM, Apex™, Apollo™, Genesis®, and Prevail™ HPLC column brands—although Grace will continue to supply media to Hichrom for these column brands.
Grace has also agreed to sell its Grace® and Alltech® solid-phase extraction (SPE) cartridge brands Maxi-Clean™, Extract-Clean™, and GracePure™ brands to S*Pure, a laboratory and scientific equipment supplier based in Singapore. A related Grace manufacturing facility in Surat, India, is included in the transaction. Grace said it will continue to supply SPE media to S*Pure.
Grace added that it is no longer accepting orders for the product lines it has sold and referred all future inquiries for these brands to the buyers.
