Berkeley Lights takes Beacon workflow tech to China

Berkeley Lights has opened an office in Shanghai to expand the reach of its automated biological workflow platform for cell line development and antibody discovery.

The office, located in Pudong, Shanghai, will provide Berkeley Lights regional marketing and pre-sales service in China and the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. The decision to open an office in the region reflects the importance of the Chinese market for the bioprocessing space, said Yue Geng, head of Asia Pacific at Berkeley Lights.

“China represents an important market for both research and biological product development,” she told Bioprocess Insider. “It is and will continue to be a key growth region for Berkeley Lights and the expansion of our workflows in the areas of Antibody Therapeutics, T Cell Discovery, and Synthetic Biology.”

Image: iStock/Kagenmi

The decision to open the office now is due to an accelerated demand for the firm’s Beacon platform in China.

The optofluidic-based technology allows biomanufacturers to pre-program and automate workflows to import, culture, assay, view and export single cells within a nanofluidic chip. The chip itself consists of nano-size chambers in which cells are placed to be cultured and assayed, allowing scientists to test cells for various properties to identify the best cells based upon user specified characteristics, and then remove those cells for further development.

“To support the demand for our products and to ensure we can support our customers throughout the region, it was clear that now is the time to open the Shanghai office,” continued Geng. “From here we can more effectively engage with our customers throughout the entire APAC region.”

She added: “Berkeley Lights is fortunate to have established great partnership in the Chinese region that has allowed us to streamline processes and shorten product lead time.”