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Arven Pharmaceuticals, a Toksoz Group Company, has selected GE Healthcare’s FlexFactory manufacturing platform to expand production capacity at its facility in Kirklareli, Turkey. With this expanded capacity, Arven will support local healthcare needs by bringing biopharmaceuticals to the Turkish and surrounding markets faster, whilst also opening up European markets through the FlexFactory’s proven track record in meeting global regulations and quality standards.
Already Europe’s seventh largest pharmaceutical market, Turkey plans to further grow and transform its healthcare sector, reaching 60% local production for its pharmaceutical medicines by 2023(1). Arven has opted to expand its production capacity in Turkey with GE’s FlexFactory platform which is based on integrated single-use technologies enabling flexible and efficient biomanufacturing operations. The resulting productivity improvements will support Arven’s biosimilars pipeline moving through the clinic to regulatory approval.
Irem Yenice, Ph.D., Head of Biotechnology and R&D Director, Arven Pharmaceuticals, said: “We used a range of different criteria to make our decision to employ single use systems for mammalian cell-based bioproduction. This included flexibility of systems, strength of local organization, technical support, speed, and collaborative work structure. GE Healthcare’s standards, and the FlexFactory platform, met our requirements. The project evaluation time was long enough to assess GE regarding our needs for biosimilar development and production. Recently, Turkey has been focusing on local production of biotechnological products. Therefore, we believe that business opportunities among the companies with similar goals in the industry will increase by utilizing single use technologies.”
Sven Henrichwark, General Manager, Global Commercial BioProcess, GE Healthcare Life Sciences, said: “Our new Fast Trak Service Center in Istanbul allows us to work closely with Arven, one of the country’s key biopharma companies, to help deliver increased capacity as well as supporting Turkey’s growing pharma industry requirements more rapidly. Turkey’s desire to boost local manufacturing capacity is an industry need we are hearing echoed across the globe. Local production capability is a crucial element in providing national healthcare systems with the vital medicines to address growing patient needs. We are excited to contribute to Arven’s development by delivering a robust and flexible biomanufacturing solution, that also includes final qualification and training.”
GE opened their Fast Trak Service Center in Istanbul in March 2016. Based in GE’s Turkey Innovation Center, the laboratory is well-located to support the region’s growing industry, and help position Turkey as a global research, development and manufacturing hub.
1. Turkey Pharmaceuticals 2015, Global Business Reports, June 2015
About FlexFactory
GE Healthcare’s FlexFactory is a centrally automated, flexible biomanufacturing platform. It allows manufacturers to quickly and easily establish biopharmaceutical manufacturing capacity within an existing building or as part of a new facility. FlexFactory is designed to help manufacturers such as Arven Pharmaceutical to rapidly respond to local healthcare needs and to support global customers in bringing lifesaving treatments to market more quickly, FlexFactory is primarily comprised of single-use technologies and associated process hardware and integrated with automation and control components for start-to-finish manufacturing of biopharmaceuticals.
About Fast Trak
GE’s Fast Trak Service Centers are specifically designed to help biopharmaceutical manufacturers increase their process productivity, reduce cost and enable them to bring their products to market faster. The centers are equipped with the latest technologies for bioprocessing in an environment and at a scale that closely replicates the real-life industrial setting. For over 30 years, thousands of customers world-wide have been trained by GE’s experienced Fast Trak leadership teams, giving customers access to industry expertise encompassing process and analytical development, process scale-up, as well as manufacture of drug substances for use in toxicology studies or Phase I and II clinical testing.
GE Healthcare has Fast Trak Service Centers in South Korea, the USA, Sweden, India, and China and satellite Fast Trak Centers in Turkey, Japan and Singapore. Worldwide, more than 500 customers attend standard Fast Trak courses every year, with training available in local languages. In addition, there are customized courses that are built upon request and tailored according to customer needs.
About Arven Pharmaceuticals
Arven (arvenilac.com.tr), a 100% Turkish capitalized pharmaceutical company, founded in 2012, is an R&D based high-tech pharmaceutical company which focusing on research and development, manufacturing and marketing of high-tech pharmaceutical products, including mainly biotech drugs containing therapeutic proteins and multi-dose innovative devices for Dry Powder Inhalers.
Arven succeeded in developing the first Turkish patented dry powder inhaler “Sanohaler®” as a result of long lasting R&D activities, which is a very important milestone in Turkish Pharmaceutical Industry.
Moreover, as a result of their investments in biotechnology, Arven Pharmaceuticals succeeded in authorising Turkey’s first biotechnological biosimilar product that was produced and developed by Turkish Pharmaceutical Industry.
Arven Pharmaceuticals Biotechnology Division continues its efforts towards improving public health with its qualified researchers and personnel, who have experience in biosimilar product development and hold advanced degrees, and its biosimilar product development infrastructure, which continues to grow each day. Toksöz Group steadily works on its largest investment in this area, which is a 28,000-square meter, high-tech product manufacturing facility for Arven Pharmaceuticals situated in the Kırklareli Industrial Zone. Arven’s vision is to develop high-tech products to the highest quality standards to achieve global recognition.
About GE Healthcare
GE Healthcare (gehealthcare.com) provides transformational medical technologies and services to meet the demand for increased access, enhanced quality and more affordable healthcare around the world. GE (NYSE: GE) works on things that matter - great people and technologies taking on tough challenges. From medical imaging, software & IT, patient monitoring and diagnostics to drug discovery, biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies and performance improvement solutions, GE Healthcare helps medical professionals deliver great healthcare to their patients.
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