The technology simplifies downstream processing for complex biologics
Biopharmaceutical CDMO Fujifilm Biotechnologies has unveiled its ShunzymeX precision purification technology, which simplifies downstream processing for complex biologics.
“Together, we believe this innovation will help create a faster path for our customers to commercialisation,” said Fujifilm senior VP of global process development John Stewart.
Developed in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh, ShunzymeX is a technology that leverages a novel protease to enable purification of complex biologics with a simplified process. The partnership between Fujifilm and the University of Edinburgh began in 2019, with joint funding from UK Research and Innovation and supported by Edinburgh Innovations, the University’s commercialisation service, to accelerate the development of biologics.
“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,” said academic lead for the partnership professor Susan Rosser.
The technology enables the addition of an affinity tag to the protein, which allows the biologic protein to be purified with an off-the-shelf affinity resin. After purification, the novel protease cleaves off the tag without leaving a scar on the native protein. The aim is to streamline the process development stage and move more quickly toward GMP manufacturing and IND-enabling milestones.
Traditional microbial downstream purification comes with challenges, including variability in size and sequence, which leads to a lack of suitable affinity resins and ultimately long development times, low yield and low purity. ShunzymeX can reduce process development timelines, is suitable with various expression systems and is scalable direct to cGMP. ShunzymeX can be paired with SymphonX, Fujifilm’s automated and customisable technology.
The purification technology will be presented at the Festival of Biologics conference in San Diego. “We’re excited to introduce ShunzymeX at the Festival of Biologics, an event with more than 2,000 attendees exploring the latest technologies and discoveries advancing our industry,” said Fujifilm senior director, technical project leader group Kenneth Holbourn.
The presentation session is “Accelerating and Streamlining Microbial Process Development with a Novel Technology,” by Holbourn on March 4th, 2026 at 2:50pm PT in Theatre Five.
