GE Healthcare agrees research alliance with NIBRT

GE Healthcare has announced a new biopharmaceutical research collaboration with the National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training (NIBRT) in Ireland.

The partnership is aimed at driving advances in technologies for use in the development and analysis of therapeutic antibodies, which play an increasingly key role in treating diseases such as cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis.

Taking place over two years, the collaboration aims to create new, robust and reproducible biochemical assays to replace the cell-based assays that currently used, due to the variable results these can produce.

A total of $500,000 (325,000 pounds) is being invested in the project during the first year, with the partnership to combine NIBRT's glycobiology expertise with GE Healthcare's capabilities in protein-protein interaction analysis.

Dr Lotta Ljungqvist, head of research and development for the biotechnology business of GE Healthcare Life Sciences, said: "Our goal is to help our customers optimise every step of their discovery, development and biopharmaceutical manufacturing process."

Last week, the company's Maynard Centre site in Cardiff received a visit from MEP Kay Swinburne, who was shown some of the cutting-edge biomedical research being conducted by GE Healthcare.