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Life Tech Investing $18M to Expand Facility to Achieve cGMP Capabilities

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Life Technologies today announced it will invest $18 million to expand its facility in Pleasanton, Calif., where the company will implement current good manufacturing practice capabilities for its genetic analysis products.

The expansion will occur over multiple phases and is part of the Carlsbad, Calif.-based company's efforts to broaden its product portfolio addressing the molecular diagnostics market. The project will break ground in the second quarter of 2013.

In the first phase of the expansion, 10,000 square feet of space will be repurposed for the manufacture of molecular probes and primers under cGMP standards, Life Tech said. In subsequent phases, 30,000 square feet of space will be added during a one- to three-year period for the production of materials, following regulatory standards, for qPCR workflows in the clinical space.

Life Tech said that it currently has nine facilities that follow cGMP standards and are ISO 9001/13485-compliant for the manufacturing of products such as instruments, reagents, assays, cell culture media, and sera.

"The expansion of the Pleasanton facility and plan to achieve cGMP certification underscores our growth strategy in new markets and our commitment to win in genetic analysis from discovery to diagnosis," Mark Stevenson, president and COO of Life Tech, said.

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