GE Healthcare, a subsidiary of GE (NYSE:GE), recently announced that it had acquired a privately-held Sweden-based company, Biosafe Group SA, a developer, manufacturer and supplier of products for cell processing in the areas of adult stem cell banking. The combined biological, engineering and industrial capabilities should advance cell therapy and cellular immunotherapy

GE’s interest in cellular research is not new. In January 2016, GE Ventures completed a $31.5 million co-investment with the Canadian government to create the BridGE@CCRM Cell Therapy Centre of Excellence in order to promote new technologies for the product of new cellular therapies in Toronto. Then, in April, GE Ventures and Mayo Clinic announced the launch of Vitruvian Networks Inc., a platform company committed to accelerating access to cell and gene therapies through cloud-ready software systems and manufacturing services.

Also, looking back to January 2014, GE Healthcare spent $1.06 billion for Thermo Fisher Scientific’s (NYSE: TMO) HyClone™ cell culture media and sera, gene modulation and magnetic beads businesses. The acquired businesses helped GE to expand and accelerate the development of end-to-end technologies for cell biology research and cell therapy.

Cell therapy, a fairly new discipline in oncology, is expected to have a market worth of $30 billion by 2030. By the end of 2015, there were over 600 therapies in clinical trials.