Frankfurt-Fechenheim, June 29, 2023. Nancy Faeser, Federal Minister of the Interior and Home Affairs and top candidate of the SPD for the Hesse state elections, together with Dr. Edgar Franke, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Health, visited BioSpring GmbH in Frankfurt-Fechenheim on June 29, 2023. BioSpring is a leading global manufacturer of active pharmaceutical ingredients based on synthetic nucleic acids.

Faeser and Franke toured the production facilities of the Hessian company where BioSpring produces high-tech active ingredients under clean room conditions and is, among other accomplishments, the world's leading manufacturer for molecules that are currently used in genome editing (CRISPR/Cas) and similar applications.

"Our economy in Hesse has great potential— as shown by the strong development of BioSpring. We need to promote new technologies more strongly in Hesse and thus ensure that our economy will also be successful in five, ten, twenty years. That's why we, the SPD, are planning a transformation fund, which means more money for targeted innovations in future technologies. Only in this way will it be possible for Hesse to be ahead again."

The two managing directors and owners Dr. Sylvia Wojczewski and Dr. Hüseyin Aygün explained to Faeser and Franke the background and possible applications of the therapeutic nucleic acid molecules they produce. "We are very pleased about both the visit of the Federal Minister of the Interior and the interest in the forward-looking topic of high-tech drug production in Hesse," said Managing Director Dr. Hüseyin Aygün. "Medical biotechnology is a key technology of the present and the future. It is therefore important that the framework conditions for these future technologies are right so that companies can continue to create jobs and add value in Hesse and Germany in the future," Dr. Wojczewski further emphasized.

Nancy Faeser and Dr. Edgar Franke were shown the outstanding medical importance of the novel drugs produced by BioSpring for gene therapy as well as cell therapy, which offer completely new treatment options for a variety of diseases. These include neurological diseases, as well as cancer and metabolic diseases, which until now could not be treated at all or only with great difficulty using conventional agents. BioSpring is the global market leader for the production of the main component of the so-called "gene scissors" (CRISPR/Cas), which is used in cell and gene therapy.

During a tour, Faeser and Franke were able to gain an impression of the high quality standards required for the production of active ingredients.

About 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 world's leading manufacturer of therapeutic gene scissors (genome editing) used in cell and gene therapy.

The active ingredients produced at BioSpring have the potential to enable therapies for a plethora of untreatable diseases. These include novel compounds for the treatment of cardiovascular, neurological, and metabolic diseases (and more), as well as cancer.

BioSpring was founded in Frankfurt am Main by Dr. Hüseyin Aygün and Dr. Sylvia Wojczewski, who were then doctoral students at Goethe University, and is still owner-managed. The company, which now has over 500 employees, has its production headquarters in Frankfurt-Fechenheim as well as a subsidiary in San Diego, USA, and, in the near future, additional production facilities in Offenbach am Main, where up to 1500 jobs will be created in the long term.

From left to right: Stefanie Minkley, Nancy Faeser, Dr. Sylvia Wojczewski, Dr. Edgar Franke, Dr. Hüseyin Aygün

Photo: Die Profifotografen (Ulrich Schepp).

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: schink@biospring.de

 

State Secretary at HMWEVW Dr. Philipp Nimmermann visits BioSpring in Frankfurt-Fechenheim 

Frankfurt-Fechenheim, March 2023 Dr. Philipp Nimmermann, State Secretary in the Hessian Ministry of Economic Affairs, Energy, Transport and Housing (HMWEVW), visited the production site of BioSpring GmbH in Frankfurt-Fechenheim on Friday, March 3, 2023. BioSpring is a leading global manufacturer of active pharmaceutical ingredients based on synthetic nucleic acids and announced last year an expansion to 40,000 square meters in the city of Offenbach.

During the meeting, the two managing directors and owners Dr. Sylvia Wojczewski and Dr. Hüseyin Aygün highlighted the importance of BioSpring's production of therapeutic nucleic acids to provide a new class of treatment options for a wide range of untreatable diseases, or diseases lacking effective treatment options through conventional pharmaceuticals. These include neurological disorders, metabolic diseases, and types of cancer. In addition to these therapeutic applications, the so-called "oligonucleotides" are also already being used successfully in diagnostics and research and development. BioSpring provides clinical and commercial stage manufacturing and analysis of therapeutic oligonucleotides  for pharmaceutical and biotech companies worldwide. BioSpring is also the global market leader for the production of gRNA, the main component of the so-called "gene scissor" (CRISPR/Cas), which is used in cell and gene therapy.

During a tour of the complex clean room production facilities and analytical laboratories, Dr. Nimmermann gained insight into the high-quality standards that clinical and commercial therapeutic production requires.

"We are very pleased about the visit by State Secretary Dr. Nimmermann and the interest in the topic of high-tech active pharmaceutical ingredient production," said Managing Director Dr. Sylvia Wojczewski.

"To be a successful business location, it is imperative to have innovative companies like BioSpring," expressed Dr. Nimmermann.

About BioSpring:

BioSpring is a contract manufacturer for the biotech and pharmaceutical industry and a global leader in production and analysis of so-called oligonucleotides, which are used in clinical and commercial therapies, research, and diagnostics. Oligonucleotides are composed of the same building blocks as human genetic material. BioSpring is the world's leading manufacturer of the main component of the therapeutic "gene scissor" which is used in cell and gene therapy. The active pharmaceutical ingredients produced at BioSpring have powerful implications to the future of treating a wide range of untreatable diseases. These include novel compounds for the treatment of cardiovascular, neurological, and metabolic diseases, as well as various cancers. BioSpring was founded in Frankfurt am Main by Dr. Hüseyin Aygün and Dr. Sylvia Wojczewski, who were then doctoral students at Goethe University, and is still owner-managed. The company, which now has almost 500 employees, has its production headquarters in Frankfurt-Fechenheim and a subsidiary in San Diego, USA.

From left to right: Dr. Sylvia Wojczewski, Dr. Philipp Nimmermann, Dr. Hüseyin Aygün

Photo: 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: schink@biospring.de

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: schink@biospring.de

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: schink@biospring.de