Vetter has moved into its new headquarters in Ravensburg, Germany. The opening of the building, known as Ravensburg Vetter Kammerbruehl, sends a clear signal from the family-owned company: “stability and progress will continue – even during globally difficult times”.
While the situation regarding the coronavirus continues to shift, Vetter says it’s doing what is necessary to continue being a stable and reliable partner for its customers and suppliers. As a CDMO, the company works together with its clients to continue enabling the supply of oftentimes life-saving drugs to patients worldwide.
With the move to the new headquarters, Vetter is responding to the continuous growth of headcount and changing circumstances. “We are relying on sustainable and future-oriented activities with the focus on our customers and their patients,” says MD Peter Soelkner.
The building is designed for around 1,000 employees. In addition to an appropriate level of office space, it includes a company restaurant, a cafeteria and about 40 conference rooms. Vetter has invested roughly $59m in a building that conforms to construction and environmental standards.
The former headquarters, Ravensburg Vetter Verwaltung, was modified to be used as a training centre to house the Vetter Academy, offering employees qualification programs and individual development opportunities on a continuous basis. In addition, a separate floor in the building is now used as an audit and conference location.
Recently, a combination building for manual visual inspection and secondary packaging started operations at the Ravensburg Vetter Sued / Vetter secondary packaging site. Furthermore, an additional cleanroom for the manufacturing of prefilled syringes is planned to go operational at the Schuetzenstrasse site in 2021. At this location, Vetter has also secured an adjoining plot of land for a further production building.
Meanwhile, the recently purchased clinical manufacturing site in Rankweil, Austria, is aimed to be ready for drug development in H2 2021.
“Part of our 360-degree approach includes investments in the expansion of our development capacities,” said Soelkner. “We have observed a steady increase in demand from our customers as well as ever-more complex requirements for modern compounds.” The company has responded to these needs at both its Schuetzenstrasse site as well as at the company’s dedicated US clinical manufacturing site. “Our goal is to expand our production capacities sustainably and to align the upstream and downstream areas accordingly,” said MD Thomas Otto.
In the coming years, the company also intends to further expand on its quality control resources. Following the recent implementation of another machine for automated visual inspection, the CDMO is planning to purchase three additional units for its centre for visual inspection and logistics. “We want to provide sufficient resources for the important step of final quality control and, at the same time, create greater flexibility,” said Otto. “These actions will even better enable us to offer our customers either manual or automatic visual inspection depending on individual batch sizes and special characteristics of their products.”
The company is planning further future investments as part of its long-term customer partnerships, aiming to continue its sustainable corporate development.
