With its robust balance sheet, a large acquisition by Thermo Fisher within the fragmented life science industry would not be surprising, an Evercore ISI analyst says. Over the past few years, the life science industry has seen continual disruption and consolidation through M&A activity, but according to Evercore ISI analyst Ross Muken the space remains fragmented. Muken noted this following a breakfast meeting with Marc Casper, CEO of Thermo Fisher. Thermo Fisher has been one of – if not –…
With a 14.8% year-on-year growth in its Process Solutions business, Merck KGaA has reported another strong year for its life sciences division. For the full year 2018, Germany’s Merck KGaA reported net sales of €14.8 billion ($16.6 billion) across all its divisions, a growth of 2.2% year-on-year. Its life sciences business pulled in €6.2 billion ($7 billion), up 5.2% on 2017 with a large contribution from its Process Solution business – which includes its MilliporeSigma unit – of €2.5 billion,…
Spark therapeutics has strengthened its manufacturing capabilities to achieve scale of 2×200-liter suspension upstream and 400-liter downstream to support its hemophilia A gene therapy candidate. Spark Therapeutics – set to be acquired by Roche for $4.3 billion – made history in December 2017 when it won approval for the first the first gene therapy for a genetic disease in the US in the form of Luxturna (voretigene neparvovec). Luxturna is approved to treat patients with a rare form of inherited…
The $21.4 billion addition of GE Healthcare’s Biopharma business will complement Pall’s technologies to bring biomanufacturers a fully end-to-end bioprocessing offering. BioProcess Insider reported the news that Danaher Corporation has agreed to buy the Biopharma division of GE Healthcare’s Life Sciences business for approximately $21.4 billion (€18.9 billion) on Monday. If the deal is completed, it will be the biggest merger in the bioprocessing space, dwarfing Danaher’s previous $13.8 billion takeover of Pall Corporation in 2015, and the similar size…
Key wins in gene therapy applications helped deliver a record year for bioprocessing vendor Repligen. For the full year 2018, Massachusetts-headquartered bioprocess technology firm Repligen Corporation reported sales of $194 million (€171 million), up 37% on the year prior. And looking forward, CEO Tony Hunt said his firm is “well positioned to gain further market share, as the industry continues to pivot towards flexible solutions and continuous processing to manufacture the growing number of biological drugs including promising new entrance…
Danaher Corporation will consolidate its position in the supplier space through the $21.4 billion acquisition of GE Healthcare’s biopharma division. The business will not be integrated with Pall. The deal, expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2019, will see Danaher Corporation buy the full BioPharma portion of GE Healthcare’s Life Sciences business for a cash purchase price of approximately $21.4 billion (€18.9 billion). The business, which pulls in about $3 billion in annual revenue, provides tools to…
Culture Biosciences has secured $5.5 million in funding. Founded by former Google X engineers, the CDMO has harnessed drone delivery technology to support its bioreactor simulation and scale-up services. Led by Section 32, with participation from Refactor Capital and Verily, South San Francisco, California-based firm Culture Biosciences has raised $5.5 million (€4.9 million). The contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) is offering biotech firms a digital biomanufacturing platform and bioreactor facilities to run, monitor and analyze bioreactor experiments to assess…
“We can produce the volume we need with more limited manufacturing capacity,†says AstraZeneca in the wake of closing two biologics facilities in Colorado. Last month, AstraZeneca announced plans to consolidate its US biologics manufacturing operations. This included closing facilities in Boulder and Longmont, Colorado less than four years after acquiring them from Amgen, and moving operations to its site in Frederick, Maryland. The restructure aims to drive efficiencies in its operations network, but the Anglo-Swedish firm said it expects…
Filtration firm Meissner will establish a facility in County Mayo, Ireland for the manufacture of single-use systems, creating 150 jobs. Meissner Filtration Products has taken advantage of a 34,000 square-foot facility Advanced Technology Building, constructed by Ireland’s investment agency IDA, and plans to expand it by a further 100,000 square-feet. The firm plans to construct a cleanroom within the existing facility to be used for the manufacture of single-use systems (SUS) to support biopharmaceutical clients. Adjacent land at the site…
Thermo Fisher will staff and operate a modular and fully-closed cell therapy facility in New Jersey on behalf of Torque. The 10,000 square-foot facility in Princeton, New Jersey is set to come online in 2019 and will support Torque’s immuno-oncology ‘Deep-Primed T Cell’ candidates. The products use the firm’s cell process engineering technologies, which do not require genetic engineering of the T cells, and lead candidate TRQ1501 (Deep IL-15 primed T cells) is set to begin Phase I/II clinical trials…