With no biopharma slowdown in sight, Cytiva plans $500m operational boost

Cytiva’s five-year manufacturing growth strategy includes expanding facilities and 24/7 shift patterns to support continued double-digit biopharma growth and a COVID-19 tailwind

In April, Danaher Corporation completed its $21 billion acquisition of General Electric’s (GE’s) Healthcare Life Sciences business and five months later the division – renamed Cytiva – has laid out an aggressive growth strategy to deal with demand for its bioprocess equipment and services.

“Cytiva is deploying a multi-pronged approach to expand our global manufacturing capacity,” Emmanuel Ligner, CEO of Cytiva told Bioprocess Insider. “We began in 2017 with the expansion of Uppsala site and earlier this year we announced our plans to build a new site for cell therapy technologies in Grens, Switzerland.

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“Our partnership with Wego in Asia-Pacific will triple our single use capacity in the region and we are adding new manufacturing lines, 24/7 shift pattern and increasing automation at our sites in Sweden, Singapore, Austria, Massachusetts, and Utah.

The $500 million investment spread out over five years is a response to high demand from the industry and comes on the back of years of high growth from all the major vendors. Indeed, for most of the past decade, the big vendors have repeatedly announced year-on-year double digit growth in their quarterly results. Large biopharma pipelines mean growth for tools and consumables is unlikely to abate.

“Our priority is on delivering what our customers need, when and where they need it, so they can, in turn, meet patients’ needs,” said Ligner.

While he did not divulge specific capital expenditure or potential M&A plans, he told this investment is larger than previous expansions and includes increasing Cytiva’s workforce by almost 15%, adding around 1,000 jobs.

“We took a very detailed look at our global capacity and the growing needs of our customers,” he continued, “as we developed this strategic capacity expansion plan. Cytiva is making serious investments to ensure the industry has what it needs, when it needs it, to continue to serve the growing health needs of patients around the world.”

COVID effect

Ligner cited the surge in COVID-19 related products – already labeled as a $14 billion opportunity for bioprocess vendors –  as another driver for this investment, though noted this is a short-term tailwind.

“COVID-19 is the greatest health challenge the world has collectively experienced in 100 years and the biotech industry has really come together with great collaboration amongst companies, researchers, and scientists. As with any drug development, clinical trials will determine when and which vaccines and therapies are commercialized. Success here is one of the key factors in ending the pandemic, and it will take continued collaboration in the industry to meet this unprecedented challenge,” he said.

“Most vendors to the biopharmaceutical manufacturing industry are reporting increased demand as it responds to needs in the development of diagnostics, vaccines and therapies for COVID. We are responding to both immediate COVID-driven needs and the long-term double-digit growth needs of the industry for trusted security of supply as biologics pipelines and population health trends continue to drive demand for these drugs, treatments and vaccines.

“This is about accelerated global capacity expansion for the entire industry and we anticipate that growth continuing in the coming years.”