GE Healthcare introduces new bioprocessing products
biopharmaceutical production.
The ReadyToProcess portfolio is a range of products designed to meet the biopharmaceutical industry's needs for increased speed, simplicity and safety for all areas of bioprocessing. The portfolio covers bio fermentation, mixing, connectivity, chromatography, filtration, buffer preparation, sensing and storage solutions, with further phased launches scheduled up till 2009. "All are aimed at enabling customers to develop lean processes in biomanufacturing. They deliver flexibility and lower customers' financial risk and are fully mobile, quick-to-deploy complete solutions for biomanufacturing," GE Healthcare spokesman Conor McKechnie told in-PharmaTechnologist.com. "These products simplify and speed up bioprocessing, reducing upfront investment and accelerating development. They also help eliminate wasteful practices and expand manufacturing agility. ReadyToProcess products are designed to interconnect smoothly and seamlessly. They are scalable and can be implemented upstream and downstream in biopharmaceutical operations," McKechnie said. Features currently include disposable Wave technologies which remove hours of cleaning and preparation in cell culture, and improving the environment for gentle, consistent mixing. Newly-developed filtration technologies are also available with chromatography tools coming soon. "The ReadyToProcess Platform will be an obvious choice for customers looking to increase early-stage project throughput and later-stage biopharmaceutical manufacturing flexibility," GE Healthcare LifeSciences general manager Ann O'Hara said in a statement. "The growth of our ReadyToProcess products will help customers minimise the amount of time spent on preparation and changeover activities." ReadyToProcess is planned to be the most complete portfolio of ready-to-use and disposable biopharmaceutical production solutions. "These are just the first steps in a long term commitment to continue the development of ReadyToProcess bioprocessing tools that enable lean production schemes and can lead the way to fully flexible manufacturing facilities. The future is unpredictable, the best we can do is to prepare our customers for more flexible manufacturing methods with the ReadyToProcess tools, services and product solutions," O'Hara said. ReadyToProcess technologies allow considerable advantages over conventional methods used in bioprocessing, including: higher project throughput and shorter time-to-market due to the elimination of cleaning and cleaning validation steps, elimination of cross contamination problems and reduced training and certification of employees due to the convenience of a ready to use format. While all the products are self-contained, the products can also be combined in a process. "The portfolio allows customers to choose, for example, to buy ReadyToProcess columns as stand alone units or to combine them with a ReadyToProcess system for increased flexibility, simplicity and time saving," McKechnie said. The line of products is being showcased in Hannover at the 15th annual trade fair for biotechnology, Biotechnica.
