GE Healthcare set to open biotech hub in Uppsala, Sweden

The American multinational GE Healthcare is opening a 27,000-sq-ft innovation centre in Uppsala, Sweden in an effort to boost the commercialisation of new technologies and support capabilities in the life sciences sector.The opening is set for late 2018.

The Testa centre will house four bioprocessing laboratories intended for the testing of new biopharmaceutical products.  The Swedish government has invested around €10 million in collaboration with GE Healthcare as they strive towards increased collaboration between the public sector, industry and academia. The Swedish government also opened an office dedicated entirely towards the life sciences earlier this year.

"We want to create an open environment that creates a bridge between the research and industrial production of biopharmaceuticals," said the Swedish Minister for Enterprise and Innovation, Mikael Damberg. "Ten years ago only one of the ten best-selling drugs was a biopharmaceutical, today it is eight out of ten, so this is an exciting sector that brings new treatments to our most difficult diseases."

The biotech hub follows a similar model to collaboration as seen in the UK and Finland. While GE opened their Innovation Villiage in 2015 a similar project dedicated towards digital startups was opened in Helsinki in 2014.

"We want to stimulate our own innovation as well as cooperate with researchers and nurture young businesses, so that their creativity can be taken to the global market," said Lotta Ljungqvist, head of Research & Development, BioProcess, GE Healthcare Life Sciences. "We can also act as catalyst and sounding board, making most of our global experience and scale."

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