Akeso Pharmaceuticals announced the opening of its manufacturing facility, based on GE Healthcare’s FlexFactory platform, to produce its portfolio of products, which includes drug candidates for the treatment of cancer, autoimmune diseases, arthritis, and Crohn’s disease.
The good manufacturing practice (GMP)-compliant site can support four bioreactors of 2,000L each, and will be utilized for both Akeso’s clinical and commercial supply needs.
The single-use manufacturing platform has the potential to enable developers to ‘rapidly respond’ to changing capacity needs, according to GE Healthcare, as it “reduces changeover time between batches and minimizes costs associated with cleaning.”
According to Akeso, the site will support the expansion of its operations to large-scale manufacturing of biopharmaceuticals, with an initial focus on bispecific antibodies.
Akeso plans to have the site operational by the end of 2020 and to hire up to 150 employees.
GE Healthcare announced that this becomes the 64th FlexFactory platform provided by the company globally. Specifically, in China, GE Healthcare has supplied 21 FlexFactory platforms, five of which are located in Guangzhou.
