Jacobs joins GE Healthcare as developer of Pfizer's China mAb plant

Jacobs Engineering Group has been contracted to collaborate with GE Healthcare on the development of Pfizer’s $350m monoclonal antibody manufacturing centre in Hangzhou, China.

Under the contract, the US engineering firm will be responsible for overall site design include the development of fill/finish and utility buildings a quality laboratory, an office building and a warehouse.

Jacobs will work with GE Healthcare, which was hired by Pfizer to develop the monoclonal antibody (mAb) facility in June. The General Electric division will provide single-use bioreactors with associated downstream tech as part of its KUBio modular facility system.

Daria Donati, Global Head of Evaluation & Offering, Enterprise Solutions, GE Healthcare Life Sciences, said: “We are already working collaboratively with Jacobs and other partners to help deliver to Pfizer’s overall vision for local biomanufacturing capacity to serve the growing China market.”

Donati added that: “The design of our KUBio facility is ideally suited to integration into larger projects” citing the facility GE developed for JHL Biotech in Wuhan, China as an example.

Jacobs has provided engineering services for firms in a variety of industries.

Previous projects with pharmaceutical companies include the development of a Porton Fine Chemicals’ plant in Chongqing, China. More recently Jacobs was hired to develop a facility by RNAi drug maker Alnylam.