Spurring from academia, our legacy is deeply rooted in science. We are proud of our commitment to aligning with the market to innovate in a process-centric way. But we are proudest of the fact that we have many employees who have been working toward our vision since the start.

In the beginning, Dr. Jean-Paul Behr, Dr. Anne-Lise Monjanel, Mrs. Joelle Bloch and Mr. Patrick Metz, co-founded Polyplus-transfection to make highly effective and easy to use transfection reagents available to research scientists working in molecular and cell biology. Pioneering work from their laboratory led to the commercialization of well-known transfection reagents Transfectam®, Lipofectamine™ and Polyethylenimine (PEI).

After Patrick Erbacher received his PhD from the Centre of Molecular Biophysics, CNRS, Orléans, France in 1996, his post-grad work led him to meet Dr. Behr and team. Dr. Erbacher quickly became a participant in the initial funding efforts in 2001 and has managed R&D activity since, including the evolution of the flagship PEI products line. He is also a co-inventor of many patent applications and co-author of more than 60 publications.

Starting with institutional research funding, the team at Polyplus was able to grow the business with private investment, government and industry grants, and venture capital. In 2020, private equity companies, Archimed and Warburg Pincus, purchased a majority stake. This was the impetus for the evolution into a more tailored portfolio and services approach. Polyplus management has continued to demonstrate skill and foresight both in broadening the product range and accelerating the company’s globalization, leading to the acquisition of Polyplus by Sartorius in July 2023.