Swiss medical company Roche to purchase Kapa Biosystems, bolster medical strength

Today, Swiss-based medical-tech company Roche announced its acquisition of Kapa Biosystems — a biotech startup based in Massachusetts, US with a development and manufacturing facility in Cape Town, South Africa.

According to co-founder and chief scientific officer of Kapa Biosystems, Paul McEwa, “Joining Roche provides us access to their broad product portfolio, global reach and clinical expertise that will accelerate our strategy of offering comprehensive NGS workflow solutions to more laboratories around the world.”

The deal went through with an undisclosed purchase amount and is subject to customary closing conditions.

Kapa Biosystems is a provider of genomic tools in the life science sector. Its use of proprietary technology allows it to optimise enzymes for next-generation sequencing (NGS), as well as polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and real-time applications. It was founded in 2006 by Trey Foskett, Paul McEwan, Ron McEwan and Chris McGuinness, and has

pioneered the development of high-performance reagents for a range of scientific appications.

Roche specialises in research-focused healthcare, such as pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. It’s range of research includes neuroscience, immunology, oncology, and diabetes management.

The proprietary technology allows for the generation and screening of a large number of enzyme variants due to the high customisation of it. This allows for

expediting product development timelines. Kapa’s NGS reagents have the potential to improve performance of the entire sequencing workflow.

COO of Roche Diagnostics Division, Roland Diggelmann, said:

Kapa’s technology and products complement our current expertise and offerings such as the portfolio of target enrichment products for NGS. We welcome Kapa’s employees and are looking forward to strengthening our NGS offerings with this unique technology.