Company Announcements

In February, Thermo Fisher Scientific announced an agreement to supply nucleotides, enzymes and other critical raw materials to support BioNTech‘s mRNA manufacturing platform. The four-year, nonexclusive licensing and supply agreement gives BioNTech rights to use Thermo Fisher’s technologies as part of its clinical and commercial manufacturing processes.

In March, Pall, a Danaher company, partnered with Broadley-James to integrate and distribute Broadley-James’ single-use probe and flow cell pH sensors for applications across upstream and downstream unit operations. The sensor will be integrated into Pall Biotech’s single-use technologies, as well as other commercially available bioprocessing platforms. Broadley-James single-use probe and flow cell pH sensors are currently in beta testing and when launched will be available exclusively through Pall Biotech.

Pall announced in March the next step in its collaboration agreement with ARTeSYN Biosolutions, a supplier of single-use components and fluid management technologies. Under the co-exclusive agreement, Pall Biotech will distribute ARTeSYN’s standard hardware and liner components off the shelf.

In March, the New Jersey Innovation Institute, a New Jersey Institute of Technology Corporation, signed an Industry Participation Agreement with Pall to support the development of its BioPharmaceutical Innovation iLab. The partnership will support the Cell and Gene Therapy Development Center and the Center of Advanced Biologic Manufacturing.

GE Healthcare announced a digital data exchange collaboration program with Amgen, which will include advanced data analytics to increase the understanding of the relationship between raw material variability and process performance during the manufacture of biologic medicines. As a part of this initiative, GE Healthcare and Amgen will be installing a seamless connection for data transfer between GE Healthcare raw material manufacturing sites and Amgen’s process development center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In March, Merck KGaA officially opened its €10 million ($11 million), 43,056 ft² (4,000 m²) M Lab Collaboration Center, its first such center in Europe and the ninth worldwide. The Center provides biopharmaceutical manufacturers with a shared, exploratory environment where they can closely collaborate with Merck scientists and engineers.

Product Introductions

In March, Sartorius Stedim Biotech introduced integrated online biomass measurement, using noninvasive reflectance measurement, to its ambr 15 fermentation and ambr 250 high-throughput systems for microbial applications.