Original from: 360DX

Bio-Techne announced on Thursday that it is acquiring Swiss spatial biology firm Lunaphore for an undisclosed amount. 

Bio-Techne expects the acquisition to close in the first quarter of its fiscal year 2024, it said in a statement. Tolochenaz, Switzerland-based Lunaphore offers fully automated spatial biology products, including its Comet end-to-end platform that integrates staining, imaging, and image pre-processing steps into a high-throughput instrument. The instrument is designed for use with standard pathology slides and allows for the analysis of 40 different spatial biomarkers per sample in each run, Bio-Techne said.

According to Minneapolis-based Bio-Techne, Lunaphore's technology aids in the identification of clinically relevant biomarkers to support the development of diagnostics tools, streamline clinical trials, and improve patient outcomes. 

In April, the two firms announced a strategic partnership to develop a spatial multiomic workflow using the Comet instrument and Lunaphore's Spyre antibody panels with Bio-Techne's RNAscope HiPlex technology. The workflow will enable simultaneous hyperplex detection of protein and RNA biomarkers on the same slide at single-cell resolution, Bio-Techne said.

"Lunaphore is very complementary to Bio-Techne's leading spatial biology franchise, as Comet delivers an automation platform for our RNAscope assays, and we leverage our global commercial team to penetrate this rapidly growing market," Bio-Techne President and CEO Chuck Kummeth said in a statement. 

"Bio-Techne's global reach and commercial and operational excellence will enable Lunaphore to accelerate its penetration into the high-growth spatial biology market," Lunaphore CEO Ata Tuna Ciftlik said in a statement. 

Source: Bio-Techne to Acquire Swiss Spatial Biology Firm Lunaphore