Sartorius AG


The Sartorius group is an international pharmaceutical and laboratory equipment supplier, covering the segments of Bioprocess Solutions and Lab Products & Services.
In 2019, the technology group earned sales revenue of 1827.0 million euros. Founded in 1870, the Göttingen-based company currently employs over 9,000 persons.

Company Profile

The company consists of the two divisions 'Bioprocess Solutions' and 'Lab Products & Services'. Bioprocess Solutions includes the segments filtration, fluid management, fermentation and purification and focuses on the production processes of the biopharmaceutical industry. Lab Products & Services focuses on the production and servicing of laboratory instruments and consumables, including water purification, weighing, liquid handling, microbiology, filtration and purification, and centrifuges. Sartorius has its own production facilities in Europe, Asia and America as well as sales subsidiaries and commercial agencies in more than 110 countries. The Sartorius preference share has been traded at the German technology index TecDAX since 18 June 2012.
The Executive Board of Sartorius AG consists of four members. The Chief Executive Officer, Joachim Kreuzburg, is responsible for Corporate Strategy, Human Resources Management, Legal Affairs & Compliance and Communications. He is also Chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO of the Sartorius Stedim Biotech subgroup. Rainer Lehmann is Chief Financial Officer and heads the Finance, Information Technology and Business Processes units. Since January 1, 2019, René Fáber has been a member of the Executive Board as Head of the Bioprocess Solutions Division and so has Gerry Mackay as Head of the Lab Products & Services Division.

Early history

In Florenz Sartorius, a University of Göttingen mechanician founded the fine precision weighing company called "Feinmechanische Werkstatt F. Sartorius" and began production of short-beam analytical balances. The new light weight material aluminum he used to produce these ensured rapid overseas sales.
To allow the use of hydro power, the company moved north of Göttingen to Bovenden, where the new factory provided work for 60 people. This move coincided with the production of the company's 3000th scale in 1895. However, in 1899 the headquarters of the company was to move once more, this time to a plot near the Weender highway on the northern outskirts of Göttingen.
In 1906, the founder's three sons William, Erich and Julius became partners in their father's company. Shortly after in 1911, the company celebrated the construction of its 10,000th analytical balance. In 1914, Florenz and his sons turned the company into a stock corporation to expand its capital base.
During the First World War the company was converted into producing military hardware, and relationships with the foreign business wings of the company were broken off. After the war ended, the company returned to the proven business of weighing technology; however, it was not until the mid-1930s that the pre-war production figures were once again achieved.
With the start of the Second World War, the company was once again taken over for the purpose of building military hardware, this time for the air force, and for this purpose a new factory was completed in 1941.
Between the wars in 1927, the company began the industrial production of membrane filters, under the leadership of Nobel prize winner Richard Zsigmondy and his associate Wilhelm Bachmann. This early phase of production became the foundation for Sartorius’ bioprocess business, which still produces filters to this day.

Recent history (since 2000)

Three acquisitions contributed to enhancement of the process development services offered through subsidiary Sartorius Stedim Biotech : British TAP Biosystems in 2013, which brought with it fermentation capabilities; Scottish BioOutsource Ltd. in 2015, which provided bioanalytical testing services; and German Cellca also in 2015, which was founded in 2005 and specialized in cell line and process development. By 2017, the subsidiary Sartorius Stedim Cellca was in operation, operating out of a rented facility in Lauheim, but by 2019 a new facility is slated to be occupied in the Eselsberg district of Ulm.
2000
Sartorius took over B. Braun Biotech International from B. Braun Melsungen AG. BBI, the world's leading manufacturer of fermenters and cell culture systems at the time, was integrated into the Sartorius group as Sartorius Stedim Systems GmbH , a subsidiary of Sartorius Stedim Biotech GmbH.
Sartorius AG acquired the remaining shares in Viva Science and is now the sole owner.
2005
Sartorius acquires 100% of the shares of Omnimark Instrument Corporation, Arizona, United States.
2007
Sartorius merged its biotechnology division with the French biotech company Stedim S.A. The resulting Sartorius Stedim Biotech is the world's leading technology provider for the biopharmaceutical industry. The new company is listed on the Paris stock exchange.
Sartorius took over the Toha Plast GmbH , which now operates under the name Sartorius Stedim Plastics .
2008
Through its subgroup SSB Sartorius acquired the Swiss-based Wave Biotech AG, a leading provider of single-use bioreactors.
2011
Sartorius acquired the liquid handling business of the Finnish laboratory specialists Biohit. Thus, the Group expands its product portfolio in the field of laboratory instruments.
2012
Sartorius expanded its bioprocess portfolio by cell culture media and enters a long-term cooperation agreement with the Swiss Life Science Group Lonza.
2014
Through its subsidiary SSB Sartorius acquired a majority stake in the US start-up AllPure Technologies LLC, thus complementing the disposables portfolio for the biopharmaceutical industry.
In December 2014, Sartorius sold its Industrial Technologies division, which specializes in industrial weighing and control equipment, to the Japanese company Minebea Co., Ltd. Consequently, Sartorius concentrated on its core businesses with its two divisions Bioprocess Solutions and Lab Products & Services.
2016
The company acquired two North American flow cytometry companies, IntelliCyt and ViroCyt.
In July, the company, through SSB, acquired kSep Systems, which specialized in preparative centrifugation for recombinant proteins, vaccines and cell therapy products.
In November, the SSB subdivision opened a new bioanalytical and biosafety testing facility in Boston.
2017
The company acquired cell-based assay and instrumentation firm Essen BioScience, from private equity owner SFW Capital Partners, for $320 million. They also acquired Umetrics a data analytics company for $72.5 million.
A co-development agreement between Sartorius' Cellca subsidiary and Synpromics began to test Synpromics' customized synthetic promoters on Cellca's CHO Expression Platform.
Another co-development agreement inked with Nova Biomedical to develop a system for large-scale testing of diverse cell culture conditions.

Products & services

Sartorius Stedim Biotech

BioOutsource is a subsidiary of Sartorius Stedim Biotech