Expansion on the Innovation Campus: Offenbach's Mayor Schwenke at BioSpring in Frankfurt-Fechenheim

Frankfurt, February 23^rd, 2023

Offenbach's Mayor Dr. Felix Schwenke visited BioSpring's production site in Frankfurt-Fechenheim on Tuesday. In December 2022, it was announced that BioSpring had purchased a total of 40,000 square meters on the Innovation Campus in Offenbach. During the visit, the two managing directors and owners, Dr. Sylvia Wojczewski and Dr. Hüseyin Aygün, explained the importance of the advanced active pharmaceutical ingredients produced by BioSpring and the company's future plans. The complex technologies involved were presented to  Schwenke during a joint tour of the high-tech production and laboratory facilities. Schwenke was particularly interested in how BioSpring produces and analyzes nucleic acids  for its international customers and what high standards employees, facilities, and buildings need to live up to.

The so-called synthetic oligonucleotides that BioSpring produces are used in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries for groundbreaking cell and gene therapies, creating new treatment options for potentially serious diseases that are often difficult or impossible to treat through conventional means. Synthetic nucleic acids are used not only for therapy, but also in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries for research and diagnostics.

The pioneering active ingredients that the company will produce in Offenbach in the future offer completely new possibilities in the treatment of metabolic, neuronal and cancer diseases, for example. Mayor Dr. Schwenke emphasized the company's innovative strength and international significance: "BioSpring's incredible knowledge and research over the years goes into helping their clients develop drugs that make people healthy, prolong lives and improve quality of life. With the construction of four BioSpring production facilities on the Innovation Campus, Offenbach will become a biotechnology location of international significance," Dr. Schwenke said. "Production and highly qualified jobs from a company like BioSpring are exactly what will strengthen Offenbach as a business location and make it fit for the future. The disruption of supply chains during the Coronavirus and the heavy dependence on China have shown how important it is that key technologies and production are once again increasingly based in Germany and Europe in the future."

The company's plans follow Dr. Schwenke's economic policy approach of giving Offenbach new prospects as a business location by providing highly qualified jobs in research and production and by attracting companies from future-oriented industries to invest in Offenbach. 

With his visit, Dr. Schwenke not only acknowledged the scientific and economic success and the enormous growth of the leading manufacturer of synthetic nucleic acids as a company, but also the personal commitment of Dr. Sylvia Wojczewski and Dr. Hüseyin Aygün. "When a company is successful, it looks so easy from the outside. In reality, however, there is an enormous amount of work and, of course, always getting through difficult phases," says Dr. Schwenke.

Managing Director Dr. Sylvia Wojczewski emphasized the excellent support and trusting discussions with the city of Offenbach, which had taken place in advance and contributed significantly to the decision to expand in Offenbach. They wanted to personally illustrate the company's potential by presenting the production and were very pleased with the mayor’s appreciation of their company and biotechnology as a forward-thinking industry sector.

"We experience strong support in Offenbach, with fast approval processes and projects that are moved forward quickly. The new location in Offenbach offers good infrastructural conditions for our growth and many trained specialists nearby," said Dr. Sylvia Wojczewski. Commenting on further plans, Dr. Hüseyin Aygün added: "In the long term, BioSpring is planning investments in the mid three-digit million range. The final goal is to create the world's largest production capacities of its kind for the special active ingredients and to build up new product and service lines. This growth will be combined with the long-term creation of up to 1,500 new, future-proof jobs in all areas of the company."

Furthermore, the company is already in close contact with the city's business development department to network with other institutions in Offenbach, attracting skilled workers and making it easier for employees to arrive in Offenbach.

Front row from left: Dr. Ruven Jilly (BioSpring), Dr. Sylvia Wojczewski (Managing Director and owner of BioSpring), Mayor Dr. Felix Schwenke, Dr. Hüseyin Aygün (Managing Director and owner of BioSpring), Bozica Niermann (Head of Economic Development City of Offenbach) and Kristin Gebauer (BioSpring). Back row from left: Dr. Felix Krupp, Dr. Martin Schink (both BioSpring) and Dr. Matthias Schulze-Böing (City of Offenbach).

Dr. Ruven Jilly and Mayor Dr. Felix Schwenke  

Dr. Felix Krupp and Mayor Dr. Felix Schwenke.

Photos: Die Profifotografen (Lina Prehn).

Contact

Dr. Martin Schink, Senior Team Lead Marketing
BioSpring Gesellschaft für Biotechnologie mbH
Alt-Fechenheim 34, 60386 Frankfurt am Main
Telefon: +49 (0) 69 66055000
E-Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

BioSpring expands in Offenbach: up to 1,500 new jobs

Offenbach am Main, December 16, 2022 - Before the year’s close, we share bright news for the future city of Offenbach: The biotechnology company BioSpring is purchasing an area of over 30,000 square meters on the Innovation Campus for three additional production units—a move that may create as many as 1,500 new jobs. This addition comes after a decision last January to build a high-tech production facility on their one-hectare site on Kettelerstrasse. Combined with the three additional production units on Mühlheimer Strasse, BioSpring will be tripling their space on the Innovation Campus.

In the booming biotechnology sector, BioSpring is one of Hesse's flagship companies. Started in 1997 with only six employees, the company, led by the two managing partners Dr. Sylvia Wojczewski and Dr. Hüseyin Aygün, already employs almost 500 people. Biospring manufactures active ingredients for the pharmaceutical and biotech industries and is a global leader in the production of synthetic DNA and RNA fragments, also known as oligonucleotides, for therapeutic drug applications, including cancer therapies and metabolic diseases. Due to BioSpring’s enormous growth, BioSpring was named the Hesse champion in the job engine category in 2021.

In the long term, BioSpring will invest hundreds of millions into Offenbach. When completed, the Innovation Campus will host the world's largest capacities for special oligonucleotide-based active ingredients.

Mayor Dr. Felix Schwenke emphasizes the enormous significance of the company's fundamental decision to expand strongly in Offenbach: "Offenbach will thus become an important production site for a very successful company in the biotech sector. Active ingredients based on the oligonucleotides produced by BioSpring have the potential to enable new therapeutic approaches for a large number of previously untreatable diseases. One of my central economic policy goals, to make Offenbach less dependent on individual industries by bringing in a broader mix of different companies, will thus become a reality in the coming years."

Managing Director Sylvia Wojczewski: "We are very pleased that this expansion space in Offenbach will allow us to fully exploit our enormous growth potential in the coming years. For BioSpring, the purchase of this industrial site is a big step in shaping our future."

BioSpring expects up to 200 new jobs to be created in Offenbach on the Kettelerstrasse site alone, which was acquired in January. To accomplish this, the company will repurpose the former social building of Farbwerke Hoechst, replacing the adjoining former worker’s canteen with a modern production facility.

According to Managing Director Hüseyin Aygün, both the newly acquired site on Mühlheimer Strasse and the site on Kettelerstrasse, will provide space for up to 1,500 future-proof jobs for highly-qualified employees. Construction activities are scheduled to start in 2026/2027.

The current production and laboratory facilities in Frankfurt-Fechenheim will be retained and expanded. A larger part of the administration, which will also be expanded by then, will be located in Offenbach in the long term.

Substantial increase in production

The significant expansion will provide the opportunity for BioSpring to increase its production capacities up to 30 times the current capacities long term, according to Hüseyin Aygün. This would enable highly innovative active ingredients to be produced in Offenbach on a multi-ton scale in the future.

Hüseyin Aygün: "Furthermore, the quality control and analytics divisions in Offenbach are being massively expanded. New product and service lines are being created. We are sending a strong signal for innovative and future-oriented active ingredient production at the German site."

"Offenbach's strategy for attracting innovative companies is bearing fruit," Sylvia Wojczewski attests to the City. "We are very happy about the conclusion of the purchase agreement with the municipal utility company INNO." This was preceded by intensive discussions at the highest level between Offenbach's city leaders concerning Mayor Dr. Felix Schwenke and the management of the biotech company. Sylvia Wojczewski praised the "excellent support provided by the City of Offenbach" and the "rapid process".

"For me as treasurer, such days are of course also gratifying," says city treasurer Martin Wilhelm. "With the settlement of Frankfurt-based valve manufacturer Samson AG, one of the world's leading suppliers of intelligent control valves, and the biotech company BioSpring, which is also one of the world's leading companies in its sector, there will again be a high level of value created for the city in the form of business tax revenue and jobs in the foreseeable future."

"However, it is important to understand," Wilhelm said, "that it will now take several more years for such days to be noticeable, not only through excavators and construction work, but also in the city coffers, which are important to citizens." This in no way dims the joy, it is just important to keep in mind. "You simply have to acknowledge the facts" adds city planning officer Paul-Gerhard Weiss: "After less than five years of work by Lord Mayor Felix Schwenke, very important foundations have been laid for a substantially better future for Offenbach—Prospects that this city has not had for decades."

Meanwhile, the City is working at full speed on the development plan for the Innovation Campus. Weiss continued: "The urban land use planning procedure is currently in the drafting phase, including the preparation of all necessary expert opinions and concepts."

For example, the procedure is concerned with the external and internal traffic development, an innovative mobility concept and a parking space key based on it, as well as energy and ecological issues such as solar panels or roof and façade greening. To this end, an energy concept, a climate report, and an environmental report will be drawn up. It is expected that the city council will be able to pass an approval resolution on the public display of the B-Plan in the spring, according to Councilor Weiss.

Lord Mayor Schwenke summarizes: "I have very great respect for the personal performance of the management, Dr. Wojczewski and Dr. Aygün, and I am very grateful for the good cooperation. We are offering the company the opportunity to continue its success story on its own land and to grow considerably. As long as it succeeds, it is good for people's health, for the company and for the City. If Samson and BioSpring's plans work out, there may be more people working on the Innovation Campus in the near future than in the heyday of the postwar decades. In this respect, today is without a doubt a very good day for Offenbach." Schwenke also expressly emphasized the outstanding support for this project, including from Mayor Sabine Gross, who is currently on vacation.

70 percent of the campus marketed

The owner of the Innovation Campus is INNO Innovationscampus GmbH & Co. KG, a real estate company owned by Stadtwerke Offenbach, which is developing and marketing the site together with its sister company OPG Offenbacher Projektentwicklungsgesellschaft mbH on behalf of the city.

"26 hectares of the campus are available for commercial development," explains Daniela Matha, who is responsible for the entire real estate division at Stadtwerke and manages the INNO company together with Stadtwerke CEO Peter Walther. "More than 18 hectares, 70 percent of the developable area, have now been sold," says Matha, pleased with the rapid marketing success.

More than half of this, 14.3 hectares, was acquired by Samson AG last year. BioSpring will initially set up its production as planned on just under one hectare in the east of the campus, directly next to Samson, and then expand on the newly acquired three-hectare site in the south of the industrial park.

BioSpring

BioSpring is a contract manufacturer for the biotech and pharmaceutical industries and a global leader in the production and analysis of oligonucleotides, which are used in medicine, diagnostics, and research. Oligonucleotides are made up of the same building blocks as human genetic material. BioSpring is the most important international manufacturer, especially for the therapeutic production of so-called gene scissors, which are used for the revolutionary "genome editing" as a novel treatment option.

BioSpring was founded in Frankfurt am Main by Dr. Hüseyin Aygün and Dr. Sylvia Wojczewski, who were students at Goethe University at the time, and is still owner-managed today. The company, which now has almost 500 employees, has its production headquarters in Frankfurt-Fechenheim and a subsidiary in San Diego, USA.

The active ingredients produced at BioSpring have the potential to provide therapies for a wide range of diseases that are currently untreatable. These include novel active ingredients for the treatment of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases as well as cancer, for example.

Contact

Dr. Martin Schink, Senior Team Lead Marketing
BioSpring Gesellschaft für Biotechnologie mbH
Alt-Fechenheim 34, 60386 Frankfurt am Main
Telefon: +49 (0) 69 66055000
E-Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Offenbach to become Biotech hub:
BioSpring is establishing high-tech API manufacturing facility on the Innovation Campus

Offenbach am Main, Jan 24, 2022 – With the biotech company BioSpring, another world market leader is set to establish a high-tech manufacturing facility on the Innovation Campus.

The signs are also pointing to expansion for the biotechnology company BioSpring. BioSpring plans to build an additional, high-tech manufacturing facility on the Offenbach Innovation Campus while retaining its head office in Frankfurt. The company manufactures, among other things, active ingredients for pharmaceutical and biotech companies and is a European leader in the manufacture of synthetic DNA fragments for therapeutic drug applications.

“Offenbach as an industrial hub is thus enriched by a technology with outstanding prospects for the future,” says Mayor Dr Felix Schwenke, both relieved and pleased that the elaborate work to attract new companies is once again proving successful. The valve manufacturer Samson AG made the start in the spring. The world's leading supplier of smart control valves plans to expand at its new Offenbach Innovation Campus site.

As in the case of Samson and also in other cases, OB Schwenke had sought direct contact with BioSpring's top management immediately after he had first received signals from the market and had begun trusting discussions. He always had the support of the magistrate.

The biotech company fits in perfectly with the strategy of developing the 179-year-old chemicals site into a forward-looking industrial estate with various innovative technology areas after the acquisition of the site. “Following the decline of the chemical industry at this location, there will again be a high value added for the city here in the foreseeable future in the form of business tax revenue and jobs,” says Head of Economic Affairs Schwenke with relief.

Flagship company and job engine

BioSpring, which was established in 1997 and has been owner-managed ever since, is one of Hesse's flagship companies in the biotech sector, which has been booming not only since the development of Corona vaccines. Due to its enormous growth, BioSpring was recently named Hesse's champion in the job engine category.

“At the Offenbach Innovation Campus, we will build significant new and additional capacity to continue to grow rapidly,” says Managing Director Sylvia Wojczewski. “We will create many new jobs, invest in high-tech clean rooms, which will allow us to meet the increased demand in the global market. Biotechnology is a key technology of the future as well as for Germany as an industrial hub.”

“We deal with the building blocks of life, specifically: with nucleic acids, the carriers of the genetic information of all living beings on our planet,” explains Managing Director Hüseyin Aygün. “As one of very few suppliers worldwide, BioSpring can synthetically manufacture DNA fragments, so-called oligonucleotides, in large quantities and of the highest quality for use in the fields of therapy, diagnostics and research and development. BioSpring thus supplies, among other things, the active ingredients for drugs of the future.”

BioSpring is also significantly involved in another application of oligonucleotides - genome editing (“gene scissors”). BioSpring has become the world's leading supplier of this technology, which also uses therapeutic oligonucleotides.

Hüseyin Aygün says: “Active substances based on such oligonucleotides block genetic malfunctions and thus have the potential to enable new therapeutic approaches for a variety of previously untreatable diseases. The revolutionary technology of genome editing even provides the possibility of a cure for certain genetic diseases in the future. Oligonucleotides are also used in diagnostics. For example, they are a key component in PCR tests, which are also used to detect COVID-19.

Successful economic performance

City Councillor Paul-Gerhard Weiss says that the city is currently working hard not only on a development plan, but also on a concept for connecting the industrial estate externally. Weiss, who as head of the planning and building department is a mainstay for the successful implementation of the settlements, is pleased about the additional work: “The short-term nature of the successes produces high work pressure for us. In this case, however, we are very happy about it. The demand for the commercial areas shows how attractive this location is. Offenbach thus has an important unique selling point in the region.”

“I am convinced that we will hear a lot more about BioSpring and its innovative developments in the future. They are a perfect fit for Offenbach and our strategy,” says Mayor Sabine Gross in support of the project. A very good side effect of the current settlement is that the former social building will be put to a new use under the aspect of sustainable construction. “After the settlement of Samson, today is an outstandingly good day for the city of Offenbach for the second time since 2021,” says city treasurer Martin Wilhelm, assessing the settlement and its expected impact on the budget very positively.

Since taking on the task as head of the environment department, Mayor Gross has been a member of the “economic development round”, which has been used intensively by OB Schwenke since he took office, as have city planning department head Weiss and city treasurer Wilhelm. “Without the excellent cooperation in the magistrate team, such successes would not be conceivable,” OB Schwenke clearly emphasises what he sees as an important advantage for Offenbach as a business hub. The OB also expressly emphasises the also very good cooperation with the deputy chairperson of the supervisory board of INNO Innovationscampus GmbH, Anja Fröhlich.

With a total area of 36 hectares, the Innovation Campus is the largest contiguous inner-city development area for commercial use in the Rhine-Main region. The owner is INNO, a real estate company of Offenbach City Works, which is developing and marketing the area together with its sister company OPG Offenbacher Projektentwicklungsgesellschaft mbH on behalf of the city.

“26 hectares of the campus are available for commercial development. Samson has acquired more than half of this, 14.3 hectares. BioSpring will locate its production on almost one hectare on Ketteler Strasse directly next to Samson and will convert the former social building of the former Farbwerke Hoechst for this purpose,” informs Daniela Matha, who oversees the entire real estate sector at the City Works and manages the INNO company together with City Works boss Peter Walther. The former canteen building to the north will be demolished and replaced by a contemporary production hall.

“Another important success factor for the settlement was also the good cooperation between Samson AG and BioSpring. I am very grateful to Samson for this,” adds OB Schwenke.

Press contact

Martin Schink, Senior Team Lead Marketing
BioSpring Gesellschaft für Biotechnologie mbH
Alt-Fechenheim 34, 60386 Frankfurt am Main
Phone: +49 (0) 69 66055000
email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.