Sartorius Stedim Biotech has acquired cell culture specialist Xell, headquartered in Bielefeld, Germany. Xell develops, produces, and markets media and feed supplements for cell cultures, especially for manufacturing viral vectors that are used in gene therapeutics and vaccines. The company also offers various analytical services for characterising, screening and quantifying media components, as well as for optimising media composition.

Xell 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 from 2022 to 2025.

"With this acquisition, we are expanding our current media offering specifically by specialised 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 Stedim Biotech Board of Directors.