Sartorius opens new building for membrane manufacture

The Sartorius technology group has opened a new manufacturing building at its headquarters in Goettingen, Germany, for the production of membranes. After approximately one year of construction, the new building was officially dedicated in the presence of Lower Saxony's Prime Minister David McAllister, the Mayor of Goettingen Wolfgang Meyer and many guests.

Ranking among the world's leading providers of laboratory and process equipment, the company invested some 25 million euros in extending its membrane production facility and in expanding laboratory capacity at its Goettingen site. With a floor space of 6,000 square meters, or nearly 65,000 square feet, the new building offers ample room to accommodate the new plant machinery for manufacturing polyethersulfone membranes as well as laboratories and offices for more than 120 employees.

"We have not only invested in increasing our capacity but, at the same time, have also further enhanced our manufacturing processes, making them more adaptable. This investment enables us to respond even faster and more flexibly to high demand and to maintain our quality leadership in pharmaceutical filtration," said Joachim Kreuzburg, CEO and Executive Board Chairman of Sartorius.

Sartorius membranes are processed into specialty filters that are used to sterile-filter biopharmaceuticals or to recover active ingredients from liquids. Major customers for such membranes are companies in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, which employ these filters for the production of medications in a large number of purification steps.

Construction of the new membrane production facility in Goettingen is one of the three major building projects on the basis of which Sartorius is now expanding its capacity levels. To supply the North American market, the Sartorius Group is extending its site in Yauco, Puerto Rico. In the northern part of the Federal State of Hesse in Germany, a new manufacturing plant for bioreactors is being built in Guxhagen.

Source: Sartorius AG