Baby miracle begins at Sandwich factory Genea Biomedx commercial director Kim Giliam at Genea new facilities at the Discovery Park in Sandwich. Picture: Ella Pellegrini Source: News Limited THE cycle of life for some IVF parents in Australia could begin in a tiny picturesque village in east England with a chance find allowing a Sydney company to open an offshore "baby broth" manufacturing facility. And the results could lead to a mini baby boom with the new distribution and manufacturing base set to increase capacity for embryo solution creation and get the time-sensitive substance out quicker to mothers everywhere. Sandwich, about a two hours drive south east of London, is better known as a stunning 11th Century medieval village from where in the 1700s its 4th Earl of Sandwich John Mantagu invented the bread snack of the same name. Certainly that's all Melbourne man Kim Giliam knew of the popular ancient tourist town when he had a chance conversation with a former employee from drug company Pfizer. Mr Giliam, the commercial director of Sydney headquartered Genea Biomedx - a division of one of Australia's leading providers of infertility and IVF treatments - was looking to grow the firm and initially saw Thailand as a potential new base. He was en route to Bangkok when he spoke to the former drug company worker and he mentioned a mothballed base in Sandwich. In a classic case of irony, drug manufacturer Pfizer's market-patent for the erectile dysfunction drug viagra expired in the UK in June meaning other firms could produce the top selling drug. Town of Sandwich in Kent, England, where Genea Biomedx has based its European factory. Picture: Ella Pellegrini The giant multi-million dollar facility Pfizer had built on the outskirts of Sandwich and had yet to move into was no longer required and they walked away leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment behind. "I couldn't believe when I came here, the site basically had everything we needed," Mr Giliam said yesterday. It was one of those fluky outcomes that you don't expect to have everything line itself up so well. This has pretty much everything we need, the critical right conditions to create the growth solution - baby broth - to feed embryos with the proteins, sugars, salts, etc. From a small building on the large half-empty 220 acre site Genea Biomedx will now manufacture the critical growth solution used to feed embryos in those early days. The culture solution formula was designed in a lab in Sydney after years of research but with the new base can now be distributed to hundreds of clinics in the northern hemisphere. Such is the science, conditions to make what's called the baby broth solution has to be exact with air and water purification quality and the drug company's old facility would only need minor modification. The solution also has a short shelf life but Mr Giliam said from Sandwich and nearby international air, train and seaport it could be moved quickly to clinics around the world. "It comes down to that urgency of the patient," he said. It's like customers don't wait, the liquid needs to be there and used on time ... try telling a patient 'sorry we can't do an embryo transfer because the company that's making the product just couldn't get it to us'. From here we can eliminate that risk. The site will also be used as a distribution point for other critical infertility equipment across Europe, South East Asia and eventually the IVF-conservative United States and Middle East markets. Eventually the manufacturing in England would replace where it is currently done in Kent Street in Sydney with that smaller facility instead concentrating on research and development. The firm hopes to start mass manufacturing by next July and reach 30 staff locally in the initial phase but have the capacity to expand as the business grows. "It really is exciting and not what we'd expect to find next to the sleepy hollow of Sandwich," he said.