GE Healthcare's global center of excellence for small-scale chemical and biochemical manufacturing is being located in Cardiff, Wales. The investment in GE's Maynard Centre is forecast to boost its annual revenues by more than 2 million pounds.

Manufacturing of GE Healthcare's disposable purification columns has been moved from its current base in Uppsala, Sweden, to the company's Forest Farm facility in Whitchurch, Cardiff.

A team of four will lead the development of 18 purification products, and so will help support high-tech manufacturing. The Maynard Centre aims to support this market further by increasing the volume of products and purification services produced.

“The Maynard Centre has long been at the forefront of the life science sector, and has played a key role in the quest to understand biochemistry, biology, genetics and DNA content,” said Martin James, who led the transfer from Sweden. “The transfer of this work is fantastic news for the site and for Wales, as it adds further to the portfolio of the Maynard Centre. It again demonstrates that we are at the cutting edge of product and technology development.”

The company employs about 450 workers at the Maynard Centre.

The 30-acre site was opened in 1980 and, since then, it has supplied materials to customers across the globe, ranging from multinational pharmaceutical companies to individual research institutes and universities.

The company manufactures more than 1,000 different products that aid research into key diseases. Around 20 percent of the medicines on the market today were tested prior to general use using versions manufactured at the Cardiff site.

An estimated 10 percent of the industrial research and development spend in Wales, is generated from the center.

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