BASF celebrates 75 years of API production in Minden
Site has a history going back to the 19th century
It all began when Albert Knoll filed a patent on an invention in 1886, which laid the foundation for a company called Knoll & Co.
Knoll's invention made it possible to convert morphine to codeine, an important drug at the time for treating heavy cough and severe pain. In the following years, the Ludwigshafen-based concern built up a reputation as a respected pharmaceutical company. Knoll continued his research and his achievements included isolating theobromine from cocoa shells, thereby producing a diuretic that was significantly superior to the substances available up to then.
After a period of rapid expansion – with a workforce of 60 by 1896 – and the addition of a number of new substances to the product range, tablet manufacture started at the turn of the century. By 1914 Knoll & Co was delivering product to 70 countries on all continents.
The First World War and its aftermath dramatically slowed this growth. Export restrictions, a lack of specialist staff and the Treaty of Versailles hit the company hard. As a result, sales in 1923 were 50% of the pre-war figure. To circumvent closure of the site by the French, the company set up Knoll AG Chemische Produkte in Munich.
The company resumed growth in the post-war period and quadrupled sales by 1930. Five years later an Armed Forces Health Committee concluded supply agreements for Knoll medicinal products and called for a second plant to be built in a safe part of Germany.
Minden was chosen as the ideal site owing to its position on the Mittellandkanal and the important Cologne to Berlin rail link.
The new company was registered on 13 September 1935 as Chemische Werke Minden GmbH. The first product – Cardiazol, a respiratory and cardiovascular stimulant – was launched four years later.
In the 1950s, the Minden plant was expanded to manufacture APIs, ending a long tradition of prioritising proprietary medicinal products.
Knoll AG – and the Minden site with it – became a fully owned BASF subsidiary in 1982.
Reorganisation of the Fine Chemicals segment in 2008 prompted the renaming of the business unit to Pharma Ingredients & Services. In August 2010, the business unit and the Minden site became part of the new Nutrition & Health division.
The Minden site, which employs 300, produces approximately 30 active drug substances and cosmetic ingredients. It is also the world's largest production plant for synthetic caffeine, theophylline, ephedrines and pseudoephedrine.
