UPM Biomedicals recently opened a site on the Main Campus of Switzerland Innovation Park Basel Area in the canton of Basel-Landschaft. The Finnish company is a division of the international UPM Group, which has 17,200 employees. It specializes in renewable alternatives to fossil materials and operates in numerous sectors.
UPM Biomedicals manufactures products for life sciences and medical applications based on its nanofibrillar cellulose technology made from birch wood pulp, which was launched and patented in 2014. The company's current portfolio is centered around four main product categories: GrowDex – hydrogels for 3D cell culture; GrowDase, an enzyme to recover cells from GrowDex for downstream processing; GrowInk, bioinks for 3D bioprinting; and FibDex, a dressing for wound care.
Basel Area Business & Innovation, the investment and innovation promotion agency, convinced UPM Biomedicals of the Basel Area’s benefits as a location and supported them in setting up business in the area. Among others, it introduced the company to Switzerland Innovation Park Basel Area and other real estate opportunities.
According to a statement, the Basel Area is a “new bridgehead” for UPM Biomedicals: “Arriving in Basel, one of the most dynamic life sciences clusters in the world, means that we are close to our customers in continental Europe,” commented Johana Kuncová-Kallio, Director of UPM Biomedicals, in the statement. “With our location in the heart of European pharma, we can easily collaborate on novel solutions for healthcare. We gain access to the local talent pool and become part of the life science community in Basel.”
