Since acquiring Cytiva from General Electric for $21.4 billion in 2019, the Danaher Corporation has laid out an ambitious expansion plan for the therapeutics developer and manufacturer.
Now one of its first major moves is coming to fruition. On May 31, Cytiva will open its new facility in Grens, Switzerland.
The 7,400 square meter (80,000 square foot) complex will house 250 employees. It will serve as Cytiva's home base for its cell and gene therapy business and will produce its two primary single-use cell manufacturing kits—Sepax and Sefia—and its cell expansion bioreactor Xuri.
Cytiva already has a presence in Switzerland with a plant that supports cell and gene therapy manufacturing in nearby Eysins. That site will continue production through 2023 while operations are transfered to the new facility.
The development comes two months after Cytiva opened an 11,000-square-meter manufacturing site in Cardiff, Wales, where it plans to fill 250 positions.
In September of last year, Cytiva said it was building a $52.5 million plant in South Korea to make disposable cell-culture bags used in vaccine production.
Those facilities are part of a $1.5 billion investment revealed by the company last year. In 2020, Cytiva unveiled a $500 million expansion push, which included the site in Switzerland.
“Cell and gene therapies have the potential to change the global healthcare landscape,” Catarina Flyborg, Cytiva’s VP, Cell and Gene Therapy, said in a release. “Our new facility in Grens will enable us to meet global demand for our products, while working with our customers to meet their immediate training and development needs.”
The Switzerland site will quadruple Cytiva’s capacity for producing its cell manufacturing kits, it said.