UNIVERCELLS
Univercells, an innovative bioprocessing provider focused on increasing the availability of affordable biologics to address global health challenges, has announced up to EUR 50M financing from Gamma Biosciences, a new investment platform supported by leading global investment firm KKR, that is focused on next-generation bioprocessing technologies for the production of advanced biologic therapies including gene- and cell-based therapies. The investment will be deployed in a newly created subsidiary of Univercells focused on accelerating the industrialization and commercialization of Univercells’ manufacturing technologies, including the NevoLine™ biomanufacturing platform and the scale-X™ bioreactor portfolio.
With the new financing, Univercells will focus on scaling the NevoLine platform and the scale-X portfolio with a comprehensive approach to streamline production, fund innovation, enable new product and application development and drive commercial acceleration. Specifically, the investment is intended to support continued expansion into the fast-growing gene therapy segment, including new developments that will enable a range of best-in-class solutions for viral manufacturing.
“KKR and Gamma will open access to an unparalleled global network, enabling accelerated production and delivery of the NevoLine and scale-X technologies and driving commercialization,” said Hugues Bultot, CEO of Univercells. “Aligning with high-end sponsors such as KKR that back our mission to have a positive impact on global health is a true honor for our team. This investment builds on existing grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation , Global Health Investment Fund and European Investment Bank and secures our ability to create value for the market with speed, efficacy and reliability.”
Both the scale-X bioreactor portfolio and the NevoLine biomanufacturing platform have been designed and commercially validated to reduce dramatically the footprint, capital and operational expenditures required to produce a variety of biologic and viral products. The investment is driven by a shared desire to make these breakthrough technologies more readily accessible and positively impact global health via effective, cost-controlled production solutions.
“KKR, through Gamma Biosciences, seeks to back innovative and impactful next-generation bioprocessing technologies, which is why we are excited to be investing in Univercells and its mission to deliver affordable biologics and gene therapies globally. Furthermore, we are excited to be working with Hugues and his team, who have a fantastic track record of building innovative biomanufacturing companies.” said Kugan Sathiyanandarajah, Director at KKR and Head of Europe for KKR’s Health Care Strategic Growth investing efforts, and Anuv Ratan, Principal at KKR.
The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2020. Once the transaction is complete, Univercells’ remaining business will concentrate on developing a portfolio of vaccines and biosimilars to be delivered at an affordable price and establishing its services offering.
About Univercells
Univercells
is a business-to-business provider focused on increasing the availability of affordable biologics to address global health challenges. The company is developing turnkey solutions for a series of vaccines and biotherapeutics to be delivered at an affordable price. By relying on proprietary core technologies and a continuous process intensification approach, production is achieved with a smaller footprint and significantly lower overall capital and operational costs.
A global company headquartered in Gosselies (Belgium), Univercells benefits from the support of prominent stakeholders such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Global Health Investment Fund and the European Investment Bank.
About KKR
KKR is a leading global investment firm that manages multiple alternative asset classes, including private equity, energy, infrastructure, real estate and credit, with strategic partners that manage hedge funds. KKR aims to generate attractive investment returns for its fund investors by following a patient and disciplined investment approach, employing world-class people, and driving growth and value creation with KKR portfolio companies. KKR invests its own capital alongside the capital it manages for fund investors and provides financing solutions and investment opportunities through its capital markets business. References to KKR's investments may include the activities of its sponsored funds. For additional information about KKR & Co. Inc. (NYSE: KKR), please visit KKR's website at www.kkr.com and on Twitter @KKR_Co.
About Gamma Biosciences
Gamma Biosciences is a life sciences tools platform created by KKR. Gamma’s mission is to build a leading player in next-generation bioprocessing for advanced therapies by acquiring or investing in high-potential businesses with outstanding technology and accelerating their growth.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200218005465/en/
About Business Wire
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
Stem Expands its European Operations as Demand Surges for Solar, Storage and Hybrid Energy Solutions14.10.2025 14:30:00 CEST | Press release
New Berlin competence center addresses complex European market challenges including hybridization, value stacking strategies, and merchant risk management Stem, Inc. (NYSE: STEM), a global leader reimagining technology to support the energy transition, today announced the expansion of its Berlin operations with a move to centralized and collaborative facilities. The new office underscores Stem’s commitment to advancing utility-scale solar, storage and hybrid solar-plus-storage projects across the EMEA region. The enhanced 400-square-meter space nearly doubles workspace capacity, bringing Stem’s engineering, sales, and customer success teams closer to project developers and utility partners. The centrally located Berlin hub positions the team to address Europe’s most pressing technical challenges including hybrid solar-plus-storage integration, merchant market risk management, and optimization in negative pricing environments. “This expansion underscores Stem’s commitment to embed engin
NetApp First to Embed Data Breach Detection into Enterprise Data Storage14.10.2025 14:00:00 CEST | Press release
New capabilities reinforce NetApp as the most secure storage on the planet NetApp® (NASDAQ: NTAP), the Intelligent Data Infrastructure company, today announced new industry-leading cyber resilience capabilities that further strengthen the most secure storage on the planet. The newly enhanced and renamed NetApp Ransomware Resilience service enables customers to make their data infrastructure a leading part of their comprehensive security strategy with integrated AI-powered ransomware detection and two new capabilities: a first-in-the-industry ability for enterprise storage to detect data breaches; and isolated recovery environments to enable safe and clean recovery of mission-critical data. As enterprises face their most pressing challenges—AI innovation, data modernization, cyber resilience, and cloud transformation—they need a secure, reliable, and efficient data infrastructure. While investments in AI are creating unprecedented opportunity for enterprises, they are also expanding the
NetApp Introduces Comprehensive Enterprise-Grade Data Platform for AI14.10.2025 14:00:00 CEST | Press release
Exabyte-scale AFX systems with disaggregated storage and AI Data Engine built with NVIDIA deliver on AI vision NetApp® (NASDAQ: NTAP), the Intelligent Data Infrastructure company, today unveiled visionary new products, strengthening its enterprise-grade data platform for AI innovation. As the era of AI shifts from initial pilots to mission-critical agentic applications, AI-ready data on modern enterprise-grade data infrastructure delivers the results needed for AI-driven businesses. The new NetApp AFX decouples performance and capacity with a disaggregated NetApp ONTAP that runs on the new NetApp AFX 1K storage system. NetApp AI Data Engine is a secure, unified extension of ONTAP integrated with the NVIDIA AI Data Platform reference design that helps organizations simplify and secure the entire AI data pipeline – and managed via single, unified control plane. Together, these capabilities unify high-performance storage and intelligent data services into a single, secure, and scalable of
NetApp Transforms Enterprise Cloud with Google Cloud14.10.2025 14:00:00 CEST | Press release
Flexible and powerful block storage now available in Google Cloud NetApp Volumes, along with even greater AI integration for enterprise transformation NetApp® (NASDAQ: NTAP), the Intelligent Data Infrastructure company, today announced that it has deepened its collaboration with Google Cloud to help customers accelerate cloud transformation and address critical business challenges. New block storage capabilities in Google Cloud NetApp Volumes enhance unified storage for today’s most important data workloads, including virtualized environments, self-managed databases, and AI innovation. The NetApp data platform enables any Al model—whether on-premises or in any major public cloud—to securely access a customer’s entire data estate, without needing to move data between environments. New integrated caching capabilities in Google Cloud NetApp Volumes allow for seamless access to that unified data foundation, along with advanced new integrations with Gemini Enterprise, empowering customers t
NetApp Collaborates with Cisco on Enterprise-Grade Converged Infrastructure with Disaggregated Storage for AI14.10.2025 14:00:00 CEST | Press release
NetApp AFX with Cisco Nexus integration delivers foundation for enterprise AI Networking NetApp® (NASDAQ: NTAP), the Intelligent Data Infrastructure company, today announced a collaboration with Cisco to deliver a significant evolution in converged infrastructure that builds on over 20 years of work together. The newly introduced NetApp AFX architecture now integrates with Cisco Nexus switches for intra-cluster connectivity and will soon extend to FlexPod AI. This integration continues the companies’ shared vision of providing customers with an enterprise-grade foundation for AI. NetApp AFX is powered by a disaggregated NetApp ONTAP, the industry-leading storage operating system trusted by tens of thousands of enterprise customers across industries to manage exabytes of data. The integration of Cisco Nexus 400G switches delivers the ultra-high bandwidth, low-latency, and lossless networking essential for scaling AI workloads. This ensures that customers can meet the performance demands
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom