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GE Healthcare Acquires Wave Biotech LLC, Broadening Capabilities in Growing Biopharmaceutical Manufacture Segment



    GE Healthcare, a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE:GE), today
    announced it has acquired Wave Biotech LLC, a supplier of innovative
    disposable manufacturing technologies for the biopharmaceutical
    industry. The acquisition of Wave Biotech LLC including its subsidiary
    Wave Europe Pvt. Ltd. will allow GE Healthcare to expand its offering
    of products and services for the manufacture of biopharmaceuticals
    such as antibodies and vaccines. Financial terms were not disclosed.

    Wave Biotech develops and manufactures unique bioreactors which
    are designed to replace traditional and more expensive stainless steel
    tanks and piping. The patented products offer considerable advantages
    such as more rapid installation, potentially reducing time to market,
    and significantly lower costs by eliminating the need for cleaning and
    validating between batches. The equipment is already in use in over
    three hundred companies worldwide. Wave Biotech single use bioreactors
    are also increasingly being used to enable the manufacture of
    patient-specific cell and gene therapy products.

    Ann O'Hara, General Manager of GE Healthcare's BioProcess
    business, said "Wave Biotech is an excellent company with a strong
    track record of innovation and a product range that is highly
    complementary with our existing BioProcess business. The combination
    of GE Healthcare and Wave Biotech will allow us to expand into new
    applications and to create a broad offering of added value tools and
    services for biopharmaceutical manufacture."

    "We are very excited to be part of GE Healthcare, who already
    offer a broad range of technologies and services to the
    biopharmaceutical manufacturing industry" said Dr. Vijay Singh,
    President and founder of Wave Biotech. "Our customers will benefit
    greatly from the global presence and the R&D resources that GE
    Healthcare brings to the table. The integration of single-use cell
    culture with GE Healthcare's existing filtration and downstream
    operations will provide a host of new disposable solutions to this
    growing industry."

    About GE Healthcare

    GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and
    services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our expertise in
    medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics,
    patient monitoring systems performance improvement, drug discovery,
    and biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies is helping clinicians
    around the world re-imagine new ways to predict, diagnose, inform,
    treat and monitor disease, so patients can live their lives to the
    fullest.

    GE Healthcare's broad range of products and services enable
    healthcare providers to better diagnose and treat cancer, heart
    disease, neurological diseases and other conditions earlier. Our
    vision for the future is to enable a new "early health" model of care
    focused on earlier diagnosis, pre-symptomatic disease detection and
    disease prevention. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare
    is a $17 billion unit of General Electric Company (NYSE:GE).
    Worldwide, GE Healthcare employs more than 46,000 people committed to
    serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100
    countries. For more information about GE Healthcare, visit our website
    at www.gehealthcare.com.

    About Wave Biotech LLC

    Wave Biotech is a research-based company that develops and
    manufactures innovative process equipment for the pharmaceutical and
    biotechnology industry. Our focus is on developing disposable
    bioprocess equipment for operations traditionally requiring
    stainless-steel tanks and piping. Key products, such as the Wave
    Bioreactor, Wave Mixer, and Sterile Tube Fuser, feature disposable
    contact materials that eliminate cleaning and validation, thereby
    reducing costs in operations ranging from cell culture, media
    preparation, buffer dissolution, thawing process intermediates to
    patient-specific cell therapy in hospitals. These unique, patented,
    devices can be installed and commissioned rapidly, drastically
    reducing the time-to-market for biological products. This equipment is
    in use with hundreds of companies worldwide, both for R&D and
    commercial applications. Wave Biotech employs approximately 70 people
    worldwide and operates R&D and manufacturing facilities in Somerset,
    New Jersey. Wave Biotech's annual revenues are approximately $25
    million. Dr. Vijay Singh, President and founder of Wave Biotech, will
    continue to operate the business from the Somerset facility. More
    information is available at www.wavebiotech.com.