GE Healthcare Life Sciences has opened a new additive manufacturing centre in Sweden this week, part of a 2 million USD investment to provide biopharma manufacturers with increased access to the latest technologies.
The facility in Umeå is the company’s second 3D printing centre in Sweden, built to facilitate the entire additive manufacturing workflow from design to serial production. Product design and validation will be completed in the facility in Uppsala, while the serial production of components will begin in Umeå.
The centre currently houses a single EOS 3D printer geared towards series production of polymer parts alongside a powder mixing station and advanced post-processing equipment.
Olivier Loeillot, General Manager BioProcess at GE Healthcare Life Sciences, said: “Our latest 3D printing centre offers substantial productivity gains and adds more strength to our supply chain. The components manufactured with additive technology are smaller and more durable. For our customers, this means better quality, less waste, and simplified designs. Our two additive manufacturing capabilities are strategically located in Sweden, where we produce chromatography resins and bioprocess equipment, to speed the supply of bioprocess technologies to market.”
The intention for the new facility is to integrate 3D printed parts into the production of proprietary biomanufacturing hardware. This includes components used in bioprocess equipment such as HiScale columns, Biacore SPR systems, and the recently launched ÄKTA go chromatography system for routine protein purification.
GE has invested heavily in its additive manufacturing footprint over the last 12 months with a new GE Additive site in Lichtenfels, Germany and a new 15,000-square-metre Arcam electron beam melting (EBM) centre of excellence in Gothenburg, Sweden both opening last year.
