Germany headquartered life science group Sartorius and UK-based startup SPARTA Biodiscovery have agreed to partner on SPARTA’s analysis platform, which helps speed up the development, manufacture, and quality control of nanoparticles for biopharmaceutical drugs.

Nanoparticles are small polymer or lipid capsules that act as carriers to deliver active agents to the target cells. As part of the cooperation, Sartorius will invest up to 3.5 million British pounds in a minority shareholding in SPARTA Biodiscovery through its corporate investment unit Sartorius Ventures.

“The SPARTA platform will help customers optimise the design of nanoparticles at an early stage, even before the drug candidates move on to the clinic. We have teamed up to bring additional product commercialisation and application expertise to the table to facilitate a swift transitioning from prototype to launch,” said Prof. Dr Oscar-Werner Reif, Head of Corporate Research and CTO at Sartorius.

The SPARTA Biodiscovery team spun off from Imperial College London, where it developed the core technology and prototype for the platform in the group of co-founder Professor Molly Stevens FRS, FREng. The SPARTA technology – Single Particle Automated Raman Trapping Analysis – uses spectroscopy to analyse populations of individual nanoparticles quickly and automatically at high throughput – helping to accelerate nanoparticle development and optimise quality control during production.