SGS Life Science Services, the leading pharmaceutical analytical and bioanalytical contract solutions provider, today announced the completion of an investment at its facility in West Chester, PA. Multiple new instruments for advanced analytical techniques have been installed and validated to support clients in the structural analysis of proteins.

The West Chester facility has traditionally offered primary protein and glycosylation structural analysis, in addition to Circular Dichroism, used to determine secondary protein structure. This latest investment includes Analytical Ultra Centriguation (AUC) for determining protein aggregation, Size Exclusion Chromatography with Multi-Angle Laser Light Scattering for establishing molecular weight profiles, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) to examine protein secondary structure. These new services complement the existing services and provide a comprehensive and orthogonal approach to biotherapeutic protein analyses.

The facility now mirrors the company's capabilities at its site in Wokingham, UK, which has built a reputation for offering world-class protein analysis to its clients in multiple areas. These include investigation of lot-to-lot variations, biosimilar comparability, and shipment excursion studies to monitor the stability and sensitivity of biological molecules under various storage conditions.

"This investment will allow SGS to keep up with our clients' ever growing pipelines for biological therapeutics, and also for the numerous biosimilars under development," commented Mark Rogers, Senior VP, Life Science Services, SGS North America. "We have seen the demand for these services increase and, with the impending changes to legislation for marketing biosimilars, we envisage that the need for these analyses, in order to demonstrate similarity, will continue to grow."

The investment comes after SGS last year announced increased analytical capabilities at its facilities across its global network in France, China, UK, India and the United States.

With 19 laboratories offering contract analytical and bioanalytical services, SGS leverages its wholly-owned global network, present in North America, Europe, and Asia, to deliver harmonized solutions to large pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms. In addition to testing services for the bio/pharmaceutical market, SGS also provides Phase I to IV clinical trial management and services encompassing data management and statistics, PK/PD modeling and simulation, pharmacovigilance and regulatory consultancy.

For further information, please contact:

Ferdinand Dabu
Global Marketing Director
Life Science Services                                                   
SGS, 75 Passaic Avenue,
Fairfield, NJ 07004, USA
t: +1-973-287-1219    
www.sgs.com/lifescience

Richard Kerns
President
NEPR
t: +44 (0)161 728 5880

SGS is the world's leading inspection, verification, testing and certification company. SGS is recognized as the global benchmark for quality and integrity. With more than 80,000 employees, SGS operates a network of over 1,650 offices and laboratories around the world.

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