GE Healthcare Life Sciences to build KUBio modular biopharmaceutical factory for JHL Biotech in China

GE Healthcare Life Sciences, a business unit of GE Healthcare, and JHL Biotech, a provider of biopharmaceutical process development and manufacturing services, today announced that a KUBio™ modular biopharmaceutical factory will be built in China for JHL Biotech. The site for the new factory, which will be fully operational beginning early 2015, is the Biolake Science Park in Wuhan, China.

Worldwide demand for biopharmaceuticals, such as antibodies for the treatment of cancer and a new generation of innovative vaccines, is increasing dramatically. KUBio is a new approach to readily establish biopharmaceutical manufacturing capacity by delivering customers a fully functional, ready-to-run bioprocessing facility in 14-18 months, which is significantly shorter than constructing a traditional facility. Pre-designed to meet cGMP requirements, KUBio helps manufacturers, such as JHL Biotech, respond to local healthcare needs and support global customers in bringing life-saving treatments to market more quickly.

GE Healthcare’s innovative turnkey approach will involve the assembly at the JHL Biotech site in Wuhan, China of pre-made modules equipped with GE Healthcare’s world-class technologies for the start-to-finish manufacture of biopharmaceuticals. In addition to GE project-managing the build, members of its experienced Shanghai Fast Trak team will be deployed to validate the equipment and provide training for JHL Biotech staff. After completion, the JHL Biotech KUBio facility will have a floor space of approximately 2,400m2 and will contain a number of 2,000L single-use bioreactors.

Olivier Loeillot, General Manager of Enterprise Solutions, GE Healthcare Life Sciences, commented, “The decision of JHL Biotech’s highly experienced team to select KUBio as the basis of its commercial cGMP biopharmaceutical manufacturing capabilities in China is a fantastic endorsement of our complete, turnkey approach. We look forward to working with them to bring the facility online to serve the fast-moving biopharmaceutical industry. A diverse range of customers, including governments and pharmaceutical companies, are continuing to recognize the breadth, depth, simplicity and flexibility of what we offer with KUBio.“

Racho Jordanov, Co-founder, President and CEO of JHL Biotech, added, “In realizing our vision of making world-class biopharmaceuticals affordable and accessible to all patients, KUBio was the natural choice. Utilizing manufacturing innovations was always a key part of our strategy and GE Healthcare’s KUBio delivers the technologies we want, with the technical support and training we need.”

KUBio is the latest addition to GE Healthcare’s broad offering of world-class tools, technologies and services for the biopharmaceutical manufacturing industry, allowing customers to benefit from a wide range of solutions that can be tailored to meet specific needs, from pilot to commercial scale. KUBio aligns with GE’s healthymagination initiative which focuses on reducing cost, increasing access and improving quality in healthcare.