GE Healthcare’s Life Sciences business has announced a $7 million expansion project at its single-use technology manufacturing facility in Westborough, MA. The expanded site will manufacture a range of single-use products, including cell growth bags, based on a newly developed film platform resulting from GE’s strategic alliance with Sealed Air.

With global demand predicted to exceed $3 billion by 2020¹, single-use bioprocessing technologies are playing an increasingly vital role to biologic producers, helping them accelerate capacity expansion and improve productivity to support faster delivery of targeted therapies to patient populations. GE’s tripling of production-dedicated clean room capacity at Westborough and upskilling of over 300 personnel will enable the business to meet increasing market demand, according to the company.

In addition, the installation of automated production lines is expected to drive manufacturing efficiency and improved process controls to ensure product quality and consistency.

The new film platform, developed in collaboration with Sealed Air expressly for biomanufacturing, supports cell growth and applications. It will be used in the manufacture of all single-use products at the Westborough site. In parallel, GE Healthcare Life Sciences has established an enlarged extractables and leachables (E&L) analytical laboratory in Uppsala, Sweden. That laboratory will support in-depth characterization of the potential impact of E&L compounds across all production processes and future novel single-use technology materials. 

“Biopharmaceuticals are complex to make, requiring a dependable, consistent supply of high quality manufacturing technologies” Jan Makela, general manager, bioprocess at GE Healthcare’s Life Sciences business said. “Single-use is top of mind for our customers, for its ability to flex production to meet market needs.” www.gehealthcare.com.
______________________________________________
Reference:
¹BCC Research, Single-Use Technologies for Biopharmaceuticals, 2015.