New manufacturing plant ensures more sustainable production

Opening event in celebration of the anniversary

Dortmund, 07.09.2018. Just in time for its 25^th anniversary, bitop AG is opening a new chapter: The manufacturer of natural protection molecules for skin and mucosa is expanding at its new location in Dortmund. At the opening event, bitop was welcoming around 200 guests from Germany and abroad. The products of bitop are part of many well-known cosmetics and medical devices. The substances obtained from special bacteria - so-called Extremolytes - are successfully marketed worldwide. They are used inter alia for the treatment of allergies, skin and respiratory diseases. The cosmetics industry uses bitop's products, for example, in the areas of anti-aging, skin soothing and pollution protection.

"With the move from Witten to the biotechnology location in Dortmund, we are also becoming visible to the outside world as a highly specialized, global biotech company," explains Claus Kjærsgaard, who has been the new CEO of bitop AG since June 2018. "Our newly built high-tech company building provides much-needed space for growth and also laboratories for young start-ups, as we ourselves once were. Most importantly, after the completion of the ongoing approval process, we will soon be building our new production facility, which will enable us to produce more sustainably, more effectively, and at lower cost. "

From its new location, bitop wants to open up new markets and thus further expand its position as world market leader in the segment of natural extremolytes. "With our medical devices, we are currently represented in around 50 countries, our active cosmetic ingredients are available worldwide" says the new CEO. "Above all, markets in Asia will be the focus of our interest in the coming years". The new process will also give new applications for bitop's products. A personnel expansion of currently over 50 to about 70 employees is planned in the next step.

"With the help of special nanofiltration technology, we will be able to gain our highly effective extremolytes more effective, cheaper and, above all, far more sustainable in the future.“ explains Andreas Bilstein. The scientific director of bitop AG has been taking care of the technical needs of the company, which was founded 25 years ago as a spin-off of the University of Witten-Herdecke.

"With the new process one can forego many stages of the previous production process. This saves us considerable amounts of chemicals, energy, water and activated carbon and thus protects the environment, "says Bilstein, summing up the main advantages of the new process.

bitop will invest around EUR 5.5 million in the new production facility, which will be installed in the newly constructed high-tech building following completion of the ongoing approval process. The start of production is expected in the second quarter of 2019.

"The new process will also enable new applications of our extremolytes - especially in the cosmetics industry," predicts Bilstein. Details will be evaluated in the coming months.

The 25^th company anniversary was celebrated on September 5^th for a whole day with a total of 200 invited guests from the cosmetics, pharma and animal health and care industry. During an in-house exhibition, the guests had the chance to peek behind the scenes of bitop and get in touch with all employees and departments. In the afternoon, bitop has presented three scientific and business-related lectures in all the topic areas which interest the industry. The keynote speech was given by Prof. Dr. Jean Krutmann, who spoke about the clinical efficacy of Ectoin^® for dermatological and anti-pollution applications. The scientific program was followed by a cocktail reception.

Here you can download the press release .