Pharmacia establishes Separations as a separate business called Pharmacia Fine Chemicals, later Pharmacia Biotech. A new era begins with Sepharose™ - products based on agarose gels (made from marine algae) and widely used in the production of biopharmaceuticals. Pharmacia Biotech is also the first company in the world to introduce agarose products for protein characterisation by chromatography and electrophoresis, becoming a pioneer in the field of proteomics.