Fujifilm Biotechnologies has launched its new ShunzymeX precision purification technology, which aims to streamline downstream processing for complex biologics.
The CDMO said that the technology will be presented this week at the Festival of Biologics conference in San Diego.
The new technology was developed in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh. The company described it as a "proprietary technology that leverages a novel protease to enable purification of complex biologics with a simplified process."
The technology allows for the attachment of an affinity tag to the protein, which enables the purified biologic protein to be isolated using readily available affinity resin.
Once purification is complete, a novel protease removes the tag without leaving any residue on the native protein.
This innovative approach is expected to simplify the process development stage, helping customers to progress more rapidly toward Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) manufacturing and Investigational New Drug (IND) enabling milestones.
Fujifilm Biotechnologies stated that ShunzymeX aims to tackle some inherent challenges in traditional microbial downstream purification.
These challenges arise from the diversity of proteins expressed by microbes, including differences in size and sequence, leading to a lack of suitable affinity resins.
In the absence of a robust affinity chromatography step, traditional downstream approaches can result in long development times, low yield and low purity.
By streamlining purification, ShunzymeX can reduce process development timelines. In addition, the technology is suitable for various expression systems and is scalable directly to cGMP.
"FUJIFILM Biotechnologies has more than 30 years of experience in microbial innovations, exemplified with our Paveway expression system, coupled with a proven track record in process development and a history of advancing microbial technologies," said John Stewart, Senior Vice President of Global Process Development, FUJIFILM Biotechnologies.
"Together, we believe this innovation will help create a faster path for our customers to commercialisation."
"We're excited to introduce ShunzymeX at the Festival of Biologics, an event with more than 2000 attendees exploring the latest technologies and discoveries advancing our industry," added Kenneth Holbourn, Senior Director, Technical Project Leader Group, FUJIFILM Biotechnologies.
With a strong spirit of innovation at this event, it is the perfect forum to showcase how ShunzymeX can help streamline purification for microbial products.
ShunzymeX can be paired with SymphonX, FUJIFILM Biotechnologies' fully automated and highly customisable technology, featuring an all-in-one equipment design that runs all downstream unit operations.
The new purification technology will be presented in a session titled: "Accelerating and Streamlining Microbial Process Development with a Novel Technology," by Holbourn on March 4, 2026, at 2:50 PM PT in Theatre 5 at the Festival of Biologics.
Collaboration with the University of Edinburgh
The strategic partnership between FUJIFILM Biotechnologies and the University of Edinburgh started in 2019, with joint funding from UK Research and Innovation and support from Edinburgh Innovations, the University's commercialisation service, aiming to accelerate the development of biologics.
Academic lead for the partnership, Professor Susan Rosser, said: "It's fantastic to see the ShunzymeX technology, co-developed by my colleague Professor Emerita Lynne Regan and our longstanding collaborator, FUJIFILM Biotechnologies, out in the world."
This kind of transformative partnership unlocks the power of new technologies we have developed and applies them to key industry challenges, ultimately making treatments and vaccines easier to manufacture and more accessible to millions of people.