Lonza announces an agreement with GE Healthcare under which GE Healthcare will deliver a biologics facility to Lonza in Guangzhou (CN). As the facility is part of a larger biomanufacturing initiative between GE Healthcare and Guangzhou Development District (GDD), the agreement will be finalized when contracts have been signed with the GDD. The new facility will give Lonza Pharma & Biotech a strategic base in China to respond to growing demand for high-quality CDMO services in the country.
By working with GE Healthcare to develop the new facility, based on the KUBio platform, an off-the-shelf biologics factory, Lonza intends to offer its suite of antibody development services and manufacture GMP-certified batches by 2020. The two companies will work closely on the design of the 17,000m2 site, which reportedly will include 6,500m2 of lab space and one KUBio facility.
The labs will house Lonza’s proprietary platforms for cell-line construction, including the GS Gene Expression System, as well as process development, cell banking and pilot labs. The KUBio unit will enable small-scale GMP manufacturing equipped with GE Healthcare’s single-use biomanufacturing technologies, including 1,000 and 2,000L bioreactors, combined with Lonza’s automation platforms for clinical and early-commercial supply.
“This partnership is the ideal way for Lonza to bring our expertise and technology to China,” says Marc Funk, COO Lonza Pharma & Biotech. “The combination of a strong and experienced technology provider with a long history in China, together with a dynamic regional authority, means that we can rapidly offer services to customers and ultimately get innovative therapies to patients more quickly.”
For more information, visit: www.Lonza.com