The company invested a total of €13 million.
Melsungen/Germany. On Wednesday September 6, 2006, B. Braun Melsungen AG officially opened a new Pharmaceutical Development Center at its Pfieffewiesen plant in Melsungen (Germany) after a construction period of only eighteen months. The company invested a total of €13 million in this new development center for pharmaceutical products.
"If a company wants to thrive on the international market, it needs to be innovative. With our new Development Center, we are well equipped for the pharmaceuticals market of the future", said Chairman of the Managing Board Dr. h. c. Ludwig Georg Braun in his speech at the opening ceremony, at which Udo Corts, Minister for Science and the Arts of the State of Hesse, was also present. With this major investment, B. Braun can be said to have taken another important step towards securing the future of the Melsungen location.
The Pharmaceutical Development Center was designed for developing and validating development processes for pharmaceutical products. The building also houses a development unit with a small scale production facility which enables small volumes of pharmaceuticals to be manufactured these are used to conduct stability tests and clinical studies necessary for new drugs. The new Pharmaceutical Development Center complies with all requirements of the international authorities. Thanks to an extensive clean room concept and the use of the latest technology and procedures, it is also possible to develop drugs especially for the US market and to manufacture them on a small scale.
The main focus of product development is on IV preparations for clinical nutrition – such as lipid emulsions – and on injectable solutions for anesthesia and intensive care medicine. In this respect, the Development Center also opens up new fields of products and of business for the company, as explained by Dr. Meinrad Lugan, member of the B. Braun Melsungen AG Board responsible for Hospital Care, during a recent press interview: "The new Pharmaceutical Development Center will enable us to focus more on what are known as ´orphan drugs´ – i.e. medication for rare conditions or very small groups of patients – researching them and developing suitable pharmaceutical products". The company sees considerable potential for the future in this field.
