Sartorius in business for 25 years in China, going forward

With more than 18 years' experience working in sales, Mr. Xu from Sartorius in China has never experienced such strange times as now: He has canceled all in-person customer visits, yet is still busier than ever. Every day of his schedule is fully booked with online conferences and phone calls. Customers are rushing to purchase every single roll of cellulose nitrate membrane right off the production lines at Sartorius' headquarters in Germany, because in the worldwide race against coronavirus every minute counts.

With Sartorius' cellulose nitrate membrane as one of the key components, Mr. Xu's customers, around 100 manufacturers in China, are dedicated to manufacturing lateral flow test kits for coronavirus diagnosis, not only for China, but also the entire world. Without requiring any special equipment to perform, the test kits reach a high detection rate already only a few days after infection. These kits help avoid misdiagnosis and serve as an important supplement to the standard nucleic acid diagnostic tests.

When Sartorius started its membrane business in China 17 years ago, its name was virtually unknown to Chinese customers. But in fact, Sartorius was the first commercial-scale manufacturer of cellulose nitrate membranes and has since then developed unmatched expertise in the production of various types of these high-quality matrices. Backed by high batch-to-batch consistency, outstanding performance, reliable supply, and excellent customer service, Sartorius cellulose nitrate membranes have successfully established themselves in this niche market in China, satisfying the highly demanding diagnostic and life science markets. Today, Sartorius diagnostic membranes have become the premier brand on the Chinese diagnostic market, with a market share higher than 50%.

However, membrane technology is only a minor part of Sartorius business in China. Tracing its history back to 1995, Sartorius established its first Chinese subsidiary in Beijing, starting with high-precision laboratory balances. At that time when the Chinese economy took off and laboratory research began to rise, brands “made in Germany” stood not only for premium quality and high reliability, but also for expensive prices. A decisive product for market penetration in China was the first localized balance BP210S, which rolled off the assembly line in Beijing just one year after the company was established and rapidly proved to be a market success. Since then, Sartorius has differentiated itself from the competitors by being fast, adaptive, flexible and progressive.

The Chinese market has been steadily gaining strategic importance for Sartorius. In 2013, Asian headquarters for sales, marketing and service was established in Shanghai, since then introducing the complete portfolio of Sartorius products and technologies to Asia, from laboratory instruments, to bioreactors, cell culture equipment, filtration and purification products, to media storage equipment and systems for the production and transportation of biotech medications and for vaccine manufacturing. Setting up the organization in Shanghai has been an important milestone for Sartorius in China, which sets the pace of progress for Chinese life science research and its biopharmaceutical industry.

Today, Sartorius is a trusted partner for the biopharmaceutical industry and research laboratories across the globe. With its innovative products and services, Sartorius enables pharmaceutical researchers and lab personnel to simplify progress, bringing medications safely and quickly to the patient. For instance, there is hardly a vaccine in the world that is developed or manufactured without Sartorius technologies. In the fight against coronavirus, many of the companies that are working on the development of a vaccine against this virus have been Sartorius customers for years. Among them, CanSino Biologics is using Sartorius' BIOSTAT bioreactor for developing its coronavirus vaccine candidate that has recently been approved to enter a Phase 2 clinical trial, the first to reach this stage worldwide.

Since 2013, Sartorius in China has been growing by double digits on average, not only through organic growth, but also by integration of acquired complementary technologies. Most recently, the Sartorius Group completed the acquisition of selected life science businesses from Danaher Corporation. Customers in China will also benefit from even more comprehensive support in the development of biotech drugs and vaccines as well as in the safe and efficient production of such drugs.

“It has been a great honour for us to have grown up along with the Chinese life science research sector and its biopharmaceutical industry over the past 25 years. Sartorius is fully committed to providing continuous investment and pursuing its long-term strategy on the Chinese market. We have planned significant investment, which will be carried out over the years up to 2025. At the same time, we have set ourselves ambitious targets with corresponding local investments for 2025 and beyond. We are confident about achieving these targets through the high personal commitment of our employees and their remarkable teamwork,” said Dr. J?rg Lindenblatt, Managing Director of Sartorius Stedim Shanghai.

Twenty-five years seems a quite long era for China, where its economy has been growing at a tremendous pace. But for Sartorius, a 150-year German company that has evolved from a university “mechanician” into a global player, twenty-five years is just the beginning: Exciting challenges, ground-breaking innovations and promising future opportunities are waiting to be explored.