iBio, Inc. (OTCBB: IBPM), its development collaborator, Fraunhofer USA Center for Molecular Biotechnology (CMB), and GE Healthcare, a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE), today announced their entry into an agreement to jointly develop and globally market manufacturing solutions for biopharmaceuticals and vaccines based upon their respective proprietary technologies. Financial terms are not being disclosed.
“This is another implementation of our model to affiliate and out-source with best-in-class collaborators like GE Healthcare and CMB as the fastest and lowest risk path to revenue growth.”
This new business initiative combines the value of GE Healthcare's capabilities and worldwide presence in life sciences, iBio's highly efficient iBioLaunch™ plant-based vaccine and therapeutic protein manufacturing platform, and CMB's advanced vaccine and molecular biology expertise.
iBioLaunch plant-based technology enables the production of vaccine and therapeutic proteins at substantially lower capital and operating costs than are possible with other technologies. GE Healthcare has developed solutions and offerings including those which enable customers to build processes and facilities based on single-use and ready-to-use technologies.
In this collaboration with iBio and CMB, GE Healthcare will supply bioprocessing products and process expertise for integration with the iBioLaunch platform. It will also support the development of products based on the iBioLaunch platform and product offering.
The manufacturing solutions covered by the agreement include product licenses, technology transfer services, design of upstream and downstream manufacturing processes; supplies of equipment, consumables and related validation support, construction of buildings, facility operations and related financial services.
"This is an exciting development in GE Healthcare's strategy to deliver more efficient and cost-effective biopharmaceutical and vaccine manufacturing technologies," said Peter Ehrenheim, President and CEO, Life Sciences, GE Healthcare.