GE Healthcare opens US$ 7.4 Million APAC Fast Trak Bioprocessing Technology and Training Centre in South Korea

GE Healthcare’s Life Sciences business have announced the opening of a GE Fast Trak Centre in Songdo, Incheon Metropolitan City, South Korea.  The new US$ 7.4 million centre will support the growth of South Korea’s rapidly expanding biopharmaceutical industry by providing hands-on practical training, technology evaluation, manufacturing support, and consultancy services in the latest strategies and technologies for upstream and downstream bioprocessing. 

Demand for GE’s newest Fast Trak Centre is expected to be high. During the past five years the domestic production of biopharmaceuticals in South Korea has grown 9%, and exports grew almost 34% between 2014 and 2015, from US$ 589 million to US$ 809 million. Songdo is already home to a number of leading South Korean biopharmaceutical companies, and excellent national and international transport links will enable GE customers from other parts of the country, and the wider Asia region, easy access to the services that the centre has to offer.

Kieran Murphy, President and CEO of GE Healthcare’s Life Sciences business, said: “We’re delighted to be investing in South Korea with our fifth global Fast Trak Centre, which brings us closer to our customers in one of the world’s key bioprocessing hubs, enabling us to share our global knowledge and expertise at a local level.  South Korea has some of the world’s most innovative biopharma companies, and we look forward to further supporting the growth of the industry here.” 

The 2,200 m2 APAC Fast Trak Centre in Songdo, South Korea adds to GE’s existing global network of Fast Trak Centres in the USA, Sweden, India, and China.  The company also has satellite Fast Trak Centres in Turkey, Japan and Singapore. Worldwide, around 500 customers attend standard Fast Trak courses every year, with training available in local languages. In addition, there are customised courses that are built upon request and tailored according to customer needs.

GE’s Fast Trak Training Centres are specifically designed to help biopharmaceutical manufacturers increase their process productivity, reduce cost and enable them to bring their product to market faster. They are equipped with the latest technologies for bioprocessing in an environment and at a scale that closely replicates the real-life industrial setting.