Investing in our Global Network to support our Customers' Growth Ambitions

Siegfried looks back on a long chemical and pharmaceutical heritage, celebrating its 150 years jubilee in 2023. We are proud of our long history, our broad range of technological solutions, the strength of our global teams and our outstanding quality track record. The corporate journey – especially in the last 12 years – was one of success thanks to an attractive business model, close partnerships with our customers, a clear strategic focus and strong execution capabilities of our people. As a result, the company's recent development is remarkable: since 2010, net sales rose 251% to over one billion CHF, whereas EBITDA grew by 459%, the number of employees more than 5 times and the number of sites increased from 3 to 11. And the journey shall continue…

We leverage our global network to provide tailor-made solutions for both, Drug Substances and Drug Products

Siegfried builds on a finely tuned global development and production network of eleven sites in seven countries on three continents, both in the area of Drug Substances and Drug Products. Within this network, each site has clearly defined role and corresponding core competences and technology portfolio. We leverage this network by assigning dedicated tasks and combining capacities and capabilities for tailor-made solutions. 

This network makes Siegfried one of the globally leading Drug Substance CDMO for small molecules both in terms of technology portfolio as well as capacity. And with the three significant acquisitions in the area of Drug Products in the recent years we now have critical size and broad technologies and large capacities in Drug Products as well. With this well balanced footprint, Siegfried is now a worldwide leading integrated supplier and a trusted partner for both, Drug Substance and Drug Products.

Sustainability is an integral part of our decision making

Siegfried's journey since 2010 proves that we walk our talk and deliver on our strategy and growth aspirations. We continue to strengthen our core by ongoing organic investments and use M&A to build out this core and to enter into adjacencies. In 2021, we made a major growth step with the acquisition of the two Novartis sites near Barcelona, achieving critical size in Drug Products with five sites worldwide. This allows us to make our customers very attractive and flexible offerings, combining newly available differentiating technologies and the additional capacities while at the same time creating economies of scale. Moreover, we are building a Center of Excellence for Drug Products development services at our Barcelona sites, which shows our strong commitment to invest in technologies and to development capacities for our customers.

In addition, Siegfried is also expanding its capabilities and capacities in its Drug Substance network. Examples of this are the new large R&D center, which we will build in Evionnaz and the new large-scale production plant in Minden currently in construction, which will serve as the "blueprint" for all future investments, featuring a highly flexible modular, yet standardized train concept with high-end online analytics, manufacturing automation and energy efficiency measures.

Sustainability is a core element of our decision making on this growth path. In addition to certifications such as the ISS ESG Rating and the MSCI ESG Rating, Siegfried has been included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index Europe 2021. Moreover, our commitment is to reduce our CO2 equivalent emissions by 50% by 2030 compared to 2020 (adjusted for revenue).

Ahead of the wave in challenging times

In the recent past, Siegfried proved its resilience to challenging situations thanks to decisive crisis management and careful planning and foresight. Despite demanding circumstances (integration of two sites with some 1'000 employees, the coronavirus pandemic and global supply chain disruptions) Siegfried managed to secure the supply of our customers with all important services and products at all times and to significantly grow in 2020 and even more so 2021. We take this as further proof of our robust business model, our strong partnerships with our valued customers, our attractive and healthy product portfolio – and of the hard work, determination and resilience of our global team.

In these times of macro-uncertainties and stretched global supply chains, security of supply remains a major focus area for us and our customers. Siegfried is well prepared for this, for example by offering internal backup options as second sources within our site network in Europe, the US and China, sourcing essential raw materials from at least two suppliers while monitoring our supply chains on a day-to-day and individual material basis when needed as well as building significant safety stocks. With regard to security of energy supply, we recognized the possibility of a reduced availability of natural gas at an early stage and implemented various technical measures to switch to alternative energy sources and to reduce consumption in order to prevent adverse effects on our production. Due to our systemic relevance as a manufacturer of often life-saving pharmaceutical products and our close contact with the relevant political and institutional bodies, we would be given a high priority in case of shortages.

With regard to the coronavirus pandemic, Siegfried made significant contributions towards addressing this global crisis. At its site in Hameln, Germany, a filling line for BioNTech's Covid-19 vaccine Comirnaty went into operation in the second half of 2021. With the rapid provision of the highly specialized line, Siegfried demonstrated its ability to solve technologically demanding tasks even at short notice and to quickly build up the necessary capacities. In addition to BioNTech, the US biotech company Novavax also relies on Siegfried for the aseptic filling of its protein-based Covid-19 vaccine Nuvaxovid. With these investments in our competencies and capacities at our Hameln site, but also at our site in Irvine, Siegfried has successfully established itself in the field of Biologics and has already been able to support a number of customers with development and manufacturing services beyond vaccines.

read the full article on "pharmanetwork.digital"