Sartorius is poised to further expand its life science portfolio to help facilitate the Danaher and GE Healthcare merger if antitrust authorities deem more divestments necessary. In February 2019, Danaher entered an agreement to acquire the BioPharma portion of GE Healthcare’s Life Sciences business for $21.4 billion (€19.4 billion). Nearly a year on and the deal is yet to have been approved by antitrust regulators. Danaher has had to divest various life science assets to help ease the merger, with…

Repligen says planned tech launches and growing cell and gene therapy sector demand will drive market expansion and growth in 2020. The bioprocess and life science tech supplier shared its thoughts at the JP Morgan Healthcare conference. CEO Tony Hunt said a “surge” in clinical activity is driving expansion in the CDMO space – citing announcements by Catalent and Thermo Fisher Scientific – and at large pharma firms like Amgen, Novartis and BeiGene. “If you go back a few years…

Bio-Techne, Fresenius Kabi, and Wilson Wolf have partnered to cell and gene therapy developers commercialize their products. The joint venture – ownership of which will be split equally – will offer scalable manufacturing technologies and process development know-how to biopharmaceutical developers on a contractual basis. Specifically, Wilson Wolf will contribute its G-Rex cell therapy generation platform, while Bio-Techne will provide its range of proteins, reagents, media, and gene-editing technologies. Fresenius Kabi’s Lovo cell processing system will be available to developers…

GE Healthcare Life Sciences says a single-use kit plant it is building in Grens, Switzerland will serve cell and gene therapy firms in the EU and beyond. The 7,360 square meter facility will be located in Grens near the French border. According to GE Life Sciences the facility will meet global regulatory requirements. A spokesperson told us: “The new site will manufacture the single use kits for Sepax and Sefia cell processing systems and will allow us to increase our…

Astrea Bioseparations will supply prepacked chromatography columns to Thermo Fisher. Formerly known as Prometic Bioseparations, the firm now forms part of KKR life sciences tool platform Gamma Biosciences. Late last year, Bioprocess Insider reported the planned acquisition of Liminal BioSciences’ chromatography and bioprocessing business Prometic Bioseparations by investment firm KKR in a deal worth up to £77 million ($100 million). Now complete, KKR has announced the firm will now be known as Astrea Bioseparations Ltd and is the first company…

iBio will use blockchain tech to cut costs and improve traceability in a deal that may also see Mateon spin-out a biopharma AI specialist. Plant-based biologics CDMO iBio asked EdgePoint AI – a unit of Mateon Therapeutics – to install artificial intelligence (AI) technologies at its manufacturing facility in Bryan, Texas. The idea is that the systems – known as TrustPoint Vision Fabric and TrustPoint Smart Protocols – will monitor production operations conducted and store data in a “blockchain.” Cost savings…