On Mar. 7, 2012, GE Healthcare announced an agreement to acquire Xcellerex, a supplier of manufacturing technologies for the biopharmaceutical industry, for an undisclosed amount.

According to a press release, the acquisition will allow GE Healthcare to expand its offering of products and services for the manufacture of biopharmaceutical products such as recombinant proteins, antibodies, and vaccines. Xcellerex develops and produces turn-key biomanufacturing systems and production-scale bioreactors based around single-use components, including single-use bioreactor systems that are complementary to GE Healthcare’s products and range of media for cell culture. The companies believe that the strong strategic fit between the two companies, combined with expanded capabilities in product development and marketing, will offer significant customer benefits.

Nigel Darby, vice-president of BioTechnologies, and chief technology officer of GE Healthcare Life Sciences says in the release, “GE and Xcellerex share the vision that an integrated approach, where we can help customers optimize every stage of their manufacturing process, has the potential to increase production flexibility and to deliver higher yields of finished product while reducing time to market. With the global focus on spiraling health costs and the need for sustainable healthcare, these are critical issues for the industry.”

Guy Broadbent, president and CEO of Xcellerex, adds, “The integration of Xcellerex’s products with GE Healthcare’s complementary capabilities in upstream and downstream bioprocessing will help bring great benefits to our customers.”