GE Healthcare and Scottish synthetic biology firm Synpromics partnered to develop a new library of synthetic promoters for GE's biologics manufacturing. Synpromics CEO David Venables said in January that the privately held, Edinburgh-based company's promoters should enable GE to boost processing yields for GE's biomanufacturing clients. Synpromics will receive an undisclosed up-front fee as part of the deal, which calls for it to develop custom-built promoters using its PromPT synthetic DNA design platform. The firm claims that deploying its platform improves on the conventional viral or gene-specific promoters on which the biopharma industry relies. GE Healthcare will employ Synpromics' platform on its Chinese hamster ovary (CHO)-cell-based expression system to produce difficult-to-manufacture proteins for use as therapeutics. GE is the latest and largest partner that Synpromics has announced related to its line of synthetic promoters. In December, it divulged an expanded agreement with Menlo Park, California–based Adverum Biotechnologies to develop promoters for treating eye diseases. That same month, it said it would lend its technology and expertise to Sartorius Stedim Cellca, a leading producer of CHO-expression-system-derived biopharmaceuticals in Göttingen, Germany. Other announced clients include the gene therapy companies Amsterdam-based uniQure and Alachua, Florida–based AGTC.