GE Healthcare acquires biopharma manufacturer

Chalfont St Giles, UK – GE Healthcare, part of General Electric Company, says it has acquired Wave Biotech, a supplier of disposable manufacturing technologies for the biopharmaceutical industry. The acquisition will allow GE Healthcare to expand its offerings to include manufacturing biopharmaceuticals such as antibodies and vaccines.

Wave Biotech develops and manufactures bioreactors that are designed to replace stainless steel tanks and piping. The company says the products’ advantages include more rapid installation, potentially reducing time to market, and significantly lower costs by eliminating the need for cleaning and validating between batches. Single-use bioreactors are also increasingly being used to enable the manufacture of patient-specific cell and gene therapy products.

Wave Biotech is an excellent company with a strong track record of innovation and a product range that is highly complementary with our existing bioprocess business,” says Ann OHara, general manager of GE Healthcares bioprocess business. “The combination of [the two] will allow us to expand into new applications and to create a broad offering of added value tools and services for biopharmaceutical manufacture.