New Jersey Innovation Institute Sells BioCentriq For $73M

NEWARK, NJ — Newark-based New Jersey Innovation Institute (NJII) has sold its subsidiary, BioCentriq Inc., to South Korean health care company GC corp. for $73 million, it recently announced.

BioCentriq first was launched in 2019 by NJII, a New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) corporation that was created in 2014 to serve as a portal and platform for higher education/industry partnerships.

According to a statement from NJIT, BioCentriq manufactures autologous and allogeneic cell therapies and gene therapies and specializes in viral vector production, cell and viral banking, and upstream and downstream processing.

NJIT released the following background about the sale:

“NJII initially began exploring the sale of BioCentriq through a bid process that involved more than 50 companies, and the terms of the deal and its closing were approved recently by the NJII Board of Directors. The members of the NJII board include a broad range of industry, government, and higher education leaders. The proceeds of the transaction will be held by NJII and redeployed to continue growing an innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem that supports the state of New Jersey and its regional economy.”

Moving forward BioCentriq will operate in a mode similar to other GC companies, with each maintaining its individual culture and identity while sharing best practices, NJIT stated.

Dr. Haro Hartounian of BioCentriq, will become the CEO of BioCentriq upon the closing of the transaction. He will retain his position as affiliated faculty at NJIT, the university said.

“Thanks to the foresight of the NJIT Board of Trustees in supporting the creation of NJII, we were able to create an entity that has built upon NJIT’s strengths in life sciences and engineering to serve as a catalyst for entrepreneurship and industry partnership,” NJIT President Joel Bloom said.

“This is a perfect example of what NJII was designed to do,” the company’s CEO Simon Nynens agreed. “In this case, we were able to work with industry to identify an area of huge need and create an entity that delivers a solution.”

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