Sartorius expands activities in South Korea and France
The new investments will also see the creation of up to 1,250 jobs across the two countries.
South Korea cell culture media production
In South Korea, Satorius will invest around €270m ($300m) from now to the end of 2024.
In the biopharma hub of Songdo in Incheon, the company will launch cell culture media production and assemble sterile systems for efficient and flexible manufacturing of biopharmaceuticals, along other operations. The investment will serve both South Korean and wider Asian markets.
The company's site will cover some 25,000 square meters (270,000 square feet) and will include an application center with laboratories as well as several buildings for manufacturing and logistics.
Sartorius‘ existing South Korea activities for service as well as marketing and sales will relocate to the new site, which offers space for further extensions. Construction work at the site is slated to begin in the coming year, and production operations are scheduled to start by the end of 2024.
Sartorius currently employs 180 people in South Korea: but will employ a further 750 as part of the investment.
Executive board chairman and CEO of Sartorius Joachim Kreuzburg said: “The development of the biopharmaceutical industry in Asia and, in particular, South Korea, has entered a new phase characterized by a high innovation and investment pace on the part of our customers.
"With our significant investments in Songdo, we will be increasing capacities, moving production operations closer to our customers in the region and substantially accelerating our delivery speed.”
French investment accross three sites
In France, Sartorius will expand capacity at its facilities in Aubagne, Cergy and Lourdes in order to citing strong demand from the biopharmaceutical industry.
An €100m ($113m) investment between 2021 and 2025 will be used to upgrade the three sites, as well as creating 400 new permanent jobs across French operations.
The biggest chunk of investment will go into building new cleanrooms and R&D laboratories at Sartorius’ French headquarters in Aubagne, near Marseille.
The investment will almost double the company’s amount of cleanroom space in the country: with 4,000 square meters to be added to the existing 5,000 square meters.
New R&D laboratories covering close to 2,000 square meters will also be added.
The company’s logistics platforms will be upgraded with the addition of more than 10,000 square meters of warehouse facilities and storage depots. Equipment will be digitalized and automated to increase capacity and create a competitive advantage, adds the company.
Satorius currently employs around 1,100 people on permanent contracts in France across four different sites in Aubagne, Cergy, Dourdan and Lourdes. Up to 400 new permanent jobs will be created across the sites: notably in operations (such as production managers, machine operators, continuous improvement managers) and product development (including engineers, data analysts and marketing personnel).
"We see our biopharmaceutical customers entering a new phase characterized by a high pace of innovation, substantial investments in their operations, and increasing demands on us as their suppliers. We are supporting their efforts, significantly adding capacity and increasing the speed of delivery," commented Luc Burgard, Managing Director of Sartorius Stedim FMT and Head of Operations of the Bioprocess Solutions Division at Sartorius. "The investments in our French facilities will strengthen our industrial capabilities in this country and secure the long-term future of our operations here."
