SeaStock has confirmed that RubySea™, its red-algae pigment, is now producing at pharmaceutical-grade purity out of the company’s Fremantle facility — a milestone that puts SeaStock alongside the small handful of industrial producers of R-phycoerythrin worldwide.
RubySea™ is SeaStock’s brand for R-phycoerythrin, the naturally fluorescent protein that makes flow cytometers and diagnostic assays “see” a target cell. It sits inside somewhere between half a billion and a billion diagnostic tests a year — cancer, HIV, blood typing, immunology research — and global supply is geographically concentrated across a small number of Asian and North American producers.
Independent testing has measured RubySea™ at 5.8 on the A566/A280 purity ratio, the standard specification the diagnostics industry uses to grade R-phycoerythrin. That figure sits above every publicly published benchmark SeaStock has been able to identify, including those of the incumbent US, European and Asia-Pacific suppliers.
The material is being produced from SeaStock’s four cultivation tanks in Fremantle, with the first of the company’s expanded tube systems coming online at its Oakford site. Adding cultivation capacity is inexpensive relative to the output each tube generates.
“We’re now a diagnostics-grade biotech, not just an algae company,” said Tom Puddy, Managing Director, SeaStock. “RubySea is producing at world-class specification out of Fremantle, and the buyer conversations we’re having reflect that — the right names are on the phone.”
SeaStock is engaging with a US reagent manufacturer, an Australian medical research institute, a Western Australian government analytical laboratory, and Australian contract manufacturers on the conjugation, packing and distribution side. Independent third-party validation data is expected shortly.
RubySea™ sits alongside AlgaToro™, SeaStock’s methane-reducing feed supplement, as the company’s two commercial product lines from the same Fremantle production base.
