The Albuquerque company, founded in 2018, will maintain a presence in the city
Albuquerque Journal |BY NATALIE ROBBINS JOURNAL STAFF WRITER
Natalie Robbins covers the economy and health care for the Journal. You can reach her at nrobbins@abqjournal. com.
Albuquerque-based biotech company BennuBio has been acquired by Precision Cell Systems, or PCS, a new medical technology company headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area.
BennuBio — founded in 2018 and supported by venture funding backed by the New Mexico State Investment Council — built a superfast cytometer, or cell meter, for rapid medical diagnostics.
After acquiring the company, PCS will be able to use BennuBio’s cytometer for its work in 3D cell culture, a method of growing cells in an artificial environment to gain insight into the human body.
PCS CEO Anup Parikh declined to provide the Journal with the terms of the deal, but said the company will keep a presence in New Mexico, though its headquarters has moved to California. PCS announced the acquisition last week in a news release.
“I’m incredibly proud of the progress our team made in advancing 3D multicellular analysis,” John O’Rourke, former CEO of BennuBio, said in a statement. “Joining PCS provides the operational scale and workflow integration needed to realize the full potential of this technology and accelerate its impact for researchers globally.”
In 2018, BennuBio received $1.5 million from the New Mexico Catalyst Fund, a mix of state and private money intended to support startups under former Gov. Susana Martinez, according to a news release that year from the state Economic Development Department.
The sale could be seen as a big win for the startup economy in New Mexico. Data collected by the business nonprofit New Mexico Angels shows these companies often have a low exit rate, which means they seldom sell or get follow-on funding from investors. Since 2019, just four companies have been successfully acquired and one has made an initial public offering.
PCS announced its launch on Sept. 17 after acquiring two other biotech companies, S2 Genomics in California and ORFLO out of Ketchum, Idaho. PCS officials said last month the company’s goal was to “address challenges in cell analysis workflows.”
“BennuBio’s technology allows researchers to rapidly analyze intact samples at scale and then recover them for further analysis, kinetic studies, or continued growth,” Parikh said in a statement. “This acquisition positions PCS to deliver a seamless workflow that connects complex 3D models with single-cell insights.”