EMD Millipore Opens New R&D Center, Expanding Capabilities in Bioavailability Enhancement and Oral Dosage Formulation

• Facility fosters company's focus on Bioavailability Enhancement
• Includes state-of-the-art formulation, analytical and synthetic labs, and customer training center
• Research to focus on new inorganic carriers, solid dispersion formulation techniques and excipients for controlled release

July 12, 2013, Billerica, MA — EMD Millipore, the Life Science division of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, today announced the opening of its new Research & Development Center for Formulation in Darmstadt, Germany. The center for Formulation combines state-of-the-art formulation, analytical and synthetic labs and a fully-equipped customer training center in a single facility. The center will accelerate growth of the company’s portfolio of innovative technologies and products that overcome bioavailability and formulation challenges and will provide hands-on support to assist customers in their drug development.

“To better address the needs of our pharmaceutical customers, we are expanding our capabilities for bioavailability enhancement,” said Burghard Freiberg, Senior Vice President, Pharma Chemicals Solutions. “There is a clear market need for a comprehensive set of innovative products and technologies to support bioavailability enhancement. At our new center for Formulation, we can help customers overcome formulation-related challenges, such as insufficient API performance due to poor solubility and life cycle management developments, in a more effective and efficient manner.”

Expertise offered by EMD Millipore includes oral dosage formulation development and drug delivery systems. Core areas are inorganic carriers, solid dispersion formulation techniques, and development of other excipients and excipient systems. Technologies include granulation, tableting, film coating, direct compression and freeze drying. When requested by customers, formulated products can be analytically characterized in the new laboratory.

About EMD Millipore
EMD Millipore is the Life Science division of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, offers a broad range of innovative, performance products, services and business relationships that enable our customers' success in research, development and production of biotech and pharmaceutical drug therapies. Through dedicated collaboration on new scientific and engineering insights, and as one of the top three R&D investors in the Life Science Tools industry, EMD Millipore serves as a strategic partner to customers and helps advance the promise of life science.

Headquartered in Billerica, Massachusetts, the division has around 10,000 employees, operations in 66 countries and 2012 revenues of €2.6 billion.