June 1999
Filtration Industry Analyst
PALL OPENS KEY EUROPEAN VALIDATION LABORATORY A state-of-the-art validation laboratory has opened at Pall Europe in Portsmouth, UK, to serve the pharmaceutical industry. Laboratory director, Dr Peter Ball, says the new facility has been designed and built to meet the global needs of the biopharmaceutical industry for scientifically sound testing filtration and separations systems. This new validation laboratory will be staffed by experienced validation specialists to support the sophisticated testing required by biopharmaceutical customers. They will guide customers through initial process review, preparation of agreed protocols, testing and final documentation. The new laboratory will respond to increasing international customer demand and more than doubles the existing capacity for validation testing. Portsmouth will now be the key European facility in a worldwide network of Pall validation laboratories.
DONALDSON CLOSES OELWEIN FACILITY Donaldson Company is to shut its Oelwein, Iowa, manufacturing facility, which produces metal fabricated air cleaners and components. Closure is expected by the end of the calendar year. “The need to be cost competitive and the market transition from metal to plastic air cleaners are the overriding reasons for our intent to close the Oelwein facility,” said William Van chairman and chief IWe, executive officer of Donaldson. About 125 employees will be affected by the planned closure. Employment levels will decline as work is phased out during the year.
SARTORIUS DELIVERS RECORD PERFORMANCE considerable imPosting provements in net income and operating result, the Sartorius Group achieved the best results of its entire corporate history last year. For the Sartorius Group, the operating result was DM30.2 million in 1998, an improvement of DM6.6 million over last year’s DM23.6 million. Group net income rose DM3.5 million to DM15.0 million, up from DMI 1.5 million a year earlier. Net sales for the Sartorius Group, reported at DM479.6 million, also reached an alltime high in fiscal 1998. The Separation Technology Division boosted net sales by 8.1 per cent to DM182 million. All regions contributed to this sales growth, particularly Asia and southern Europe. The pharmaceutical segment reported the highest growth, while the laboratory segment remained level with last year. At group level, capital during expenditures 1998 climbed to DM21.6 million, from DM13.7 million a year earlier, The bulk of these expenditures focused on measures to expand production facilities and capacities, in both the Weighing Technology and Separation Technology Divisions. Group spending on research and development increased 12 per cent to DM32.9 million.
M ILLIPORE BUYS UK PURIFICATION MEDIA COMPANY Millipore Corporation has acquired Bioprocessing Corporation Limited, a private UK-based company that develops, manufactures and sells chromatograpbic media for the puritication of proteins.
Bioprocessing had 1998 revenues of approximately US$3.9 million. The transaction is valued at US$19.7 million based on an exchange of 660 000 shares of Millipore stock for 100 per cent of the stock of Bioprocessing. The acquisition strengthens Millipore’s technical product offering to its biotechnology and pharmaceutical customers. The Biopharmaceutical & Research business segment accounted for 74 per cent of Millipore’s 1998 revenues. Nicholas Lambo, the general manager of Millipore’s BioProcess division, said that Bioprocessing’s technology fitted well with Millipore’s long term strategy in protein purification, Millipore’s complementing existing membrane and chromatographic products. Lambo believes that the Bioprocessing acquisition makes Millipore a much more attractive business partner to the world’s biotech companies in new therapeutics such as monoclonal antibodies. Bioprocessing Corporation was founded by Dr Frank Roberts with financial backing from the UK venture capital group, Alta-Berkeley Associates, to exploit the opportunities for scale-up process separation and purification in the biopharmaceutical industry. Roberts will continue in his technical leadership role at Bioprocessing.
FLAIR’S IRISH PLANT GOES GREEN Flair’s Killarney, Ireland plant has become the first United Dominion location to earn IS0 14000 in addition to IS0 9001. This designation means that the plant passes all environmental, health and safety requirements, including complete traceability of its manufacturing waste. The Killamey plant manufactures filters, filter elements and air-oil separators.
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