Last month, GE Healthcare opened the Testa BioProcess Innovation Center in Uppsala, Sweden, to help academics, biotechs, and biopharmaceutical companies establish industrial proof-of-concepts.
The initiative was launched in collaboration with the Swedish government, which invested approximately SEK 100m ($11m) in the centre. “Life Sciences is a knowledge-intensive sector with a high growth potential,” said Sweden’s minister for enterprise and innovation, Mikael Damberg, at the time.
Following up after the launch, Biopharma-Reporter (BPR) spoke with the president of GE Nordics and CEO of Testa Center, Lotta Ljungqvist (LL), to discuss the meaning behind ‘Testa’, how the initiative will benefit GE Healthcare’s clients, and the future of biopharma in Scandinavia.
BPR: How will GE Healthcare benefit from offering this service?
LL: Testa Center offers GE valuable information about the needs for new innovation required in the bioprocessing space. The actors using Testa Center have technological innovations that can improve the overall biomanufacturing process efficiency, which benefits our customers – biopharmaceutical companies.
We can also learn more together, with the actors, about the biomanufacturing process and how it can be further improved.
BPR: Why ‘Testa’?
(LL) Testa means ‘to test’ in Swedish, which is fitting as new biotechnical, technical and digital innovations will be tested and verified at Testa Center.
The goal of Testa is to develop a stronger and more competitive life sciences ecosystem, and help bring new innovations to the biopharma industry.
BPR: Is Scandinavia becoming a hub for biopharmaceutical development?
LL: Especially Sweden and Denmark have a long history and competence in the life sciences sector, but during the past decade, the global competition has become increasingly intense. That is why it is important that we collaborate with the government, industry, academia and start-up companies in the region.
It is very positive that the Swedish Government has established a life science office and chosen life sciences as one of its five partnership programs – this shows that life sciences are getting more focus.
