Bio-Works is shifting its strategic focus to peptide and oligonucleotide purification, planning to double production capacity to support 300 MSEK in annual sales by 2027, expand distribution through partners such as Zenmindes Biotechnology in China, and reach break-even in the same period. The…
Bio-Works, a chromatography resin manufacturer with production at its Uppsala facility, plans to double its production capacity, expand its international distributor network, and reach break-even profitability by 2027. Chief executive officer Lone Carlbom laid out the strategy in an interview with Redeye TV, and the company published its account of that interview on Mar 24, 2026 1:38:59 PM. Production capacity currently supports approximately 150 MSEK in annual sales, and the stated plan is to reach 300 MSEK by 2027 through an expansion expected to cost under 4-5 MSEK within the existing footprint. The company also signed a strategic partnership with Zenmindes Biotechnology Co., Ltd. in the autumn of 2025 to build a presence in China's biopharmaceutical market.
The strategic center of gravity has shifted. Monoclonal antibodies remain a core market, and the company has added a product for that segment called affimAb edge . But Carlbom describes peptides and oligonucleotides as among the fastest-growing biopharmaceutical markets, and it is these modalities that the company is now positioning itself to serve. The stated logic is downstream processing: therapeutic peptides and oligonucleotides are small, complex molecules whose purification creates challenges that conventional resin design does not always solve. Carlbom positions Bio-Works as a potential partner for high-value, hard-to-purify therapeutic targets. That is a positioning statement, and it should be read as one. The company's published account supplies no independent market data for the growth claim and no comparative data for the product claims that follow.
The durability of the plan rests on three commitments that can be tracked separately: raising capacity to 300 MSEK of supported sales by 2027, executing the commercial strategy through 2026 and beyond, and reaching break-even within the same horizon. Each has its own evidence requirements, and each is examined below.
Therapeutic peptides are built by solid-phase synthesis, one amino acid at a time, and the chemistry is imperfect. Each coupling step can fail or react sideways, so the final material carries truncated chains, deletion sequences, oxidized residues, and other byproducts that are chemically almost identical to the product. Purification must separate the intended sequence from these near-neighbor impurities, and injectable products carry correspondingly strict purity requirements. Chromatography, typically reversed-phase for peptides, does the resolving, and the result depends on the selectivity and efficiency of the chromatographic medium.
Oligonucleotides present a similar problem with a different chemistry. Antisense oligonucleotides and small interfering RNAs are assembled by solid-phase synthesis as well, and the most troublesome byproduct is the failure sequence one nucleotide shorter than the product, the n-1 shortmer . It differs from the full-length strand by a single charge, so removing it demands high-resolution anion-exchange or other chromatographic methods. Phosphorothioate backbones add a further layer of complexity, because sulfur substitution creates a family of diastereomers with subtly different chromatographic behavior. These purification runs often operate under denaturing conditions, which place their own demands on the chemical stability of the resin. A medium that cannot resolve these closely related species, or that degrades under process conditions, will not deliver the purity a therapeutic program requires.
This is the technical setting for Bio-Works' claims about its WorkBeads resins . The company characterizes the resins as especially well suited to small, complex molecules and states that customers working on peptides and oligonucleotides achieve higher purity with them. Resin performance for such molecules is governed by design choices that include particle size distribution, pore architecture, ligand chemistry, and ligand density. A resin engineered for antibody capture, with large pores and a ligand designed for a 150 kDa protein, is not automatically a good tool for separating a 1 kDa peptide from its deletion sequences or a 6 kDa oligonucleotide from its n-1 shortmer. The company's assertion is that its resin chemistry is suited to exactly that task.
What the published account does not provide is data that would let a reader verify the claim. There are no chromatograms, no purity assays, no recovery figures, and no head-to-head comparisons against the ion-exchange and reversed-phase media that dominate peptide and oligonucleotide purification. Higher purity may well be true of a given resin on a given feed stream; it is precisely the kind of claim that has to be tested against a customer's own impurities, under the customer's own conditions. A resin that performs in a 1 mL lab column must also behave identically in a production-scale column, where packing, flow distribution, and ligand stability behave differently. Suppliers earn trust by showing scale-up data, not only small-column results.
Affinity chromatography is the other area where the company reports progress, and here the published record offers one relevant experimental anchor. The concept that a synthetic peptide can serve as a chromatographic ligand has direct support in the literature. A 2012 study in the Journal of Chromatography A reported a novel synthetic peptide ligand immobilized on agarose beads that achieved a dynamic IgG binding capacity of up to 48 mg/mL, purified IgG from cell culture harvest fluid with 93% purity and recovery, and separated aggregated from non-aggregated IgG, indicating potential for both capture and polishing in antibody purification PMID 22251884 . That study concerns antibodies, not peptides or oligonucleotides, and it is a single experimental report, not a commercial demonstration. What it establishes is that peptide-derived ligands can be engineered into functional, high-capacity purification media. What it does not establish is that any particular commercial resin outperforms competitors on small-molecule modalities.
The capacity plan rests on the claim that resin performance is meaningless without reliable delivery at scale. Carlbom has said that losing market share because orders cannot be fulfilled is a real risk, and that supply security is therefore a top priority. The company's stated intent is to raise production capacity from approximately 150 MSEK in supported annual sales to 300 MSEK by 2027. The total expected investment is under 4-5 MSEK, which is small because the plan is to remove bottlenecks within the existing Uppsala facility rather than to build new production space. Eliminating those constraints, the company argues, will let customers scale from the lab bench to GMP manufacturing without supply chain concerns.
The investment figure deserves scrutiny. A doubling of supported sales for under 4-5 MSEK is plausible when the constraint is process flow, staffing, or scheduling inside an existing facility, and implausible when it involves new cleanroom space, large new equipment, or a substantially expanded quality control function. The company's account does not say which bottlenecks are being addressed, what validation work the expansion requires, or what regulatory and quality requirements apply to the added capacity. Those are exactly the details a buyer would need to treat the capacity target as a supply commitment rather than a hope. Maintaining batch-to-batch consistency and delivery reliability through a low-cost expansion is a common failure point in resin manufacturing, and the published account does not address how the company will manage it.
The stated plan elements, with their figures and horizons, can be summarized as follows.
| Stated plan element | Figure | Horizon |
|---|---|---|
| Production capacity in supported annual sales | approximately 150 MSEK currently, 300 MSEK planned | 2027 |
| Investment for the capacity expansion | under 4-5 MSEK, within the existing facility | 2027 |
| Break-even profitability | target year | 2027 |
| Commercial execution program | two years of work to date | continuing through 2026 and beyond |
The two commercial pillars behind the capacity plan are worth separating. The first is internal: the company says it has spent two years focused on commercial execution, optimizing its internal sales organization and expanding its distributor network. The second is external: partnerships with regional distributors that can place the product in front of customers during early development. Both are long-cycle investments, which is why the company's own horizon for results is multi-year.
Sales cycles for chromatography resins in biopharma typically run three to five years from early development to commercial manufacturing. If a resin is introduced and qualified during early development, it tends to stay in the process; switching later means revalidation, new documentation, and regulatory risk. A supplier that engages early has a durable advantage, and a supplier that arrives late faces a long climb. This is the structural reason why Bio-Works has invested two years in commercial execution rather than in new chemistry alone, and why it frames capacity and distribution as strategic priorities on the same level as resin design. The planning horizon for these efforts runs through 2026 and beyond.
That logic explains the partnership with Zenmindes Biotechnology Co., Ltd., signed in the autumn of 2025, the season immediately preceding the company's March 2026 account. The stated purpose is to build a presence in China's biopharmaceutical market, and the company says partnering with local distributors allows it to engage earlier in customers' development phases. A distributor with regional expertise can identify and reach development-stage programs that a foreign manufacturer cannot easily access on its own. The same reasoning applies to the wider distributor network: local partners provide market knowledge, language access, and customer relationships that shorten the three-to-five-year sales cycle from the supplier's side.
What the account does not show is results. No orders, pipeline value, or market penetration figures accompany the Zenmindes announcement. The partnership is an entry vehicle, not a demonstrated revenue stream. China's biopharmaceutical market is large and competitive, and domestic resin suppliers as well as established global players are already present. Whether the partnership translates into durable market share will depend on the resin's performance in real Chinese manufacturing processes, the distributor's reach, and the company's ability to supply at scale once orders arrive. On all three points, the evidence so far is the company's own description.
Nearly everything in this account is a forward-looking statement from the company itself. The capacity target, the investment estimate, the break-even timing, the characterization of the expansion as low-cost, and the claim that peptides and oligonucleotides are among the fastest-growing biopharmaceutical markets all come from Bio-Works or from Carlbom in the interview. The source is the company's own promotional account, and its framing reflects that origin. The company also reports progress in affinity chromatography and oligonucleotide purification, a self-assessment that appears in the account without published metrics. The account does not cite external market data for the growth claim, does not specify launch timing or competitive details for affimAb edge, and provides no experimental support for the higher purity claim. None of this makes the strategy wrong; it makes the evidence base thin.
The one piece of independent scientific evidence relevant here is real but narrow. The peptide ligand study PMID 22251884 demonstrates that a synthetic peptide ligand on agarose can deliver dynamic IgG binding capacity up to 48 mg/mL, purify IgG from cell culture harvest fluid with 93% purity and recovery, and remove aggregated IgG, with potential for both capture and polishing. It does not address peptide or oligonucleotide purification, and it does not evaluate any commercial product. It is reasonable background for the claim that affinity ligands built from peptides are technically credible. It is not proof of any specific product claim made by Bio-Works.
A balanced reading of the strategy is straightforward. The commercial logic is coherent: demand for peptide and oligonucleotide therapeutics is growing, those molecules are hard to purify, and resin suppliers that can demonstrate both performance and reliable scale-up will be needed. The plan to double capacity within an existing facility for under 4-5 MSEK is credible if the bottlenecks are operational and unverified because the bottlenecks are not named. The break-even target is a target, not a result. The Zenmindes partnership is a market entry vehicle whose value is unproven. What would move this from corporate narrative to established fact is the same thing any resin buyer should ask for: published case studies with real feed streams, purity and recovery data measured by independent methods, named capacity milestones with validation dates, and financial results showing the path to profitability. The company's claim that sustainable profitability is within reach and that cash flow has strengthened is consistent with a break-even plan, but it is a claim about the future, not a record.
For a researcher or buyer evaluating Bio-Works, or any resin supplier entering peptide and oligonucleotide purification, several lessons follow.
First, security of supply can outweigh resin performance. A resin that gives the best purity in the lab but cannot be delivered at GMP scale, in consistent batch-to-batch quality, is a liability in a three-to-five-year development program. Ask what capacity a supplier actually has, how it is being expanded, and what evidence exists that the expanded line produces resin identical to the line that produced the qualification batches.
Second, test purity claims against your own impurities. When a supplier says higher purity, ask how purity was measured, against which competing products, and on which feed streams. Run the resin on your own synthesis byproducts: for peptides, the deletion and truncated sequences that coelute with the product; for oligonucleotides, the n-1 shortmer and the diastereomer family introduced by phosphorothioate chemistry. Dynamic binding capacity, resolution, and recovery under your conditions are the only numbers that matter.
Third, engage suppliers early. The three-to-five-year sales cycle means the resin chosen in early development is often the resin in the commercial process. This is why Bio-Works is investing in distributor networks and why the Zenmindes partnership targets China. From the buyer's side, early engagement with multiple qualified suppliers preserves options and avoids being locked into a single source before the process is mature.
Fourth, treat forward-looking capacity and profitability plans as diligence items. Ask which bottlenecks are being removed, what quality systems apply to the expanded capacity, and how the supplier will maintain delivery reliability during the expansion. A low-cost expansion within an existing footprint is an advantage only if quality assurance scales with it.
Finally, watch what a company does across modalities. Bio-Works is pursuing peptides and oligonucleotides while continuing to serve the monoclonal antibody market with products such as affimAb edge. A supplier that maintains established markets while building new ones is hedging its own risk, which matters for a buyer's long-term supply picture.
PMID 22251884 - Novel peptide ligand with high binding capacity for antibody purification. Journal of Chromatography A, 2012. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22251884/
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