PAA Laboratories (Pasching, Austria) recently announced that it is the final stages of becoming part of GE Healthcare (Little Chalfont, United Kingdom), a unit of General Electric Company (Fairfield, CT, USA).

PAA Laboratories develops and manufactures specialized and innovative cell culture products such as media, sera, growth supplements, and reagents for use in biomedical research and in the production of protein-based pharmaceuticals. The global demand for media, sera, and reagents for cell culture is predicted to grow from $2.3 billion in 2009 to an estimated $3.9 billion by 2015. PAA Laboratories, which maintains manufacturing facilities registered with the [US] Food and Drug Administration (FDA), has recently inaugurated an advanced manufacturing facility for powdered cell culture media to meet the growing demand for these products from the biopharmaceutical industry.

The acquisition of PAA Laboratories, which is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2011, is consistent with GE's strategy to invest in high technology, innovative businesses that deliver strong top-line growth and expanded margins. “The acquisition of PAA Laboratories is a significant step forward for our Life Sciences business and for biopharmaceutical manufacturing globally,” said Kieran Murphy, president and CEO of GE Healthcare Life Sciences. “GE Healthcare Life Sciences is well known for its expertise in the “downstream” processes of biopharmaceutical manufacturing. Adding “upstream” capabilities will enable us to provide an end-to-end, fully integrated service to our customers. We believe that an integrated approach, where we can help customers optimize every stage of their manufacturing process, has the potential to reduce cost of entry, deliver higher yields of finished product, and reduce time to market.”

Rainer Burian, CEO of PAA Laboratories said, “This is a great opportunity for the professional team of staff at PAA Laboratories, and we are very excited to become part of GE Healthcare’s Life Sciences business. The Board of Directors of PAA Laboratories strongly believes that joining such a well-respected and recognized organization will give us significant opportunities to grow our business further with new technologies, products, and services. The entire PAA Laboratories team looks forward to joining GE.”

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