WUXI, China and BETHLEHEM, Pa., March 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- WuXi Biologics (2269.HK), a leading global open-access biologics technology platform company offering end-to-end solutions for biologics discovery, development and manufacturing, today announced that it has selected 4,000 liter (L) Custom Single Run (CSR^®) disposable bioreactors from ABEC for its new commercial manufacturing facility (MFG4) in Wuxi city, Jiangsu, China. The partnership followed WuXi Biologics' successful testing and evaluation of ABEC's CSR bioreactor technology.

The 4,000L CSR is the largest single-use bioreactor size available in the industry and potentially largest-ever design in conventional disposable bioreactors, resulting in higher productivity and significantly lowering the cost of goods for cell culture-based biopharmaceuticals. The system also delivers performance comparable to stainless steel systems of that scale and can be fully customized for different products, resulting in higher cell culture productivity and faster process transfer and scale-up. With the scale-out strategy that WuXi Biologics pioneered in the industry to use multiple disposable bioreactors for commercial manufacturing, 4,000L CSRs will enable manufacturing up to the scale of 24,000L comparable to traditional stainless steel bioreactors yet still achieving the advantages of CAPEX and timeline reduction benefited from disposables.

Dr. Chris Chen, CEO of WuXi Biologics, said, "We are proud to be a global technology leader in bioprocessing and the first company in Asia to advance this exciting new technology. ABEC's large volume single-use bioreactor greatly enhances our commercial manufacturing potential by allowing not only scale-out of capacity but also scale-up. In addition to the flexibility and time to market benefits of single-use manufacturing, we can now offer our clients true economies of scale and address biologics supply needs from kilograms to tons."

"WuXi Biologics' successful testing, evaluation and investment further validates ABEC's CSR technology as one of the most flexible single-use solutions available on the market," said Scott Pickering, ABEC President and CEO. "We are pleased to be part of their next-generation manufacturing strategy, and look forward to continuing this long-term partnership."

About WuXi Biologics

WuXi Biologics, a Hong Kong-listed company, is the only open-access biologics technology platform in the world offering end-to-end solutions to empower organizations to discover develop and manufacture biologics from concept to commercial manufacturing. Our company history and achievements demonstrate our commitment to providing a truly ONE-stop service offering and value proposition to our global clients. For more information on WuXi Biologics, please visit www.wuxibiologics.com.

About ABEC

Since 1974, ABEC has been a leader in delivering integrated process solutions and services for manufacturing in the biopharmaceutical industry. A majority of the world's pharmaceutical and biotech companies are ABEC customers with many of today's leading therapies manufactured by processes and equipment engineered, manufactured, installed and serviced by ABEC. ABEC's unique value is based on long experience, complete in-house capabilities, a custom, flexible approach, and long-term credibility. Whether adding capacity or improving existing facilities ABEC's turn-key solutions and support services reduce overall cost and time to market while delivering maximum productivity. www.abecsingleuse.com.

SOURCE WuXi Biologics