Increased Safety for Medical Personnel
Das Medizinprodukt 02/09 - Greiner Bio-One’s innovative products make routine procedures in hospitals, laboratories and doctors’ offices simpler, safer and more efficient.
Greiner Bio-One develops and distributes products for clinical diagnostics, the pharmaceutical and diagnostics industry as well as for biotechnology. This is a service to scientists in their research work, to laboratories for carrying out precise analyses and to doctors for making accurate diagnoses and prescribing appropriate therapies. The concern has three business divisions. Preanalytics for specimen collection systems for hospitals, laboratories and blood banks; BioScience products for the diagnostics industry, biotechnology and research; Mediscan for sterilisation of food packaging and components for laboratory use.
The international Preanalytics and Bioscience markets are growing continually and strongly by up to 10%, which is above average. Therefore the development focus remains clearly on these areas. Greiner Bio-One is world market leader in the area of HTS products (High Throughput Screening) for pharmaceutical substance screening. With specimen collection systems, the concern has won increasing market shares over the years, and has become market leader in some regions.
Strategic Focussing
The concern has its own research centres in Kremsmünster, Austria and Frickenhausen , Germany, where teams of scientists and engineers work on new developments as well as the continual optimisation of the product range. The researchers are involved in numerous international networks, so that market trends can be reacted to quickly with appropriate solutions. This creates a dynamic, which makes Greiner Bio-One one of the most innovative companies in this sector.
The challenges of the market and the expectations of the customers are constantly on the increase. For this reason, Greiner Bio-One consistently sticks to a strategy of focussing on high quality products with above average potential for growth. The aim is not just to be good in all areas, but rather to be the best in particular areas.
VACUETTE® Sets New Standards
The Preanalytics product group has solutions for the collection and further processing of human samples – blood, saliva and urine – for analysis purposes. The products are developed in close cooperation with customers for their requirements in daily routine procedures in hospitals, laboratories, blood banks and doctors’ offices.
The blood collection procedure has not changed much over the past few decades. However, the technology of the products used for blood collection certainly has changed. Greiner Bio-One was the decisive influence in the mid-eighties, with the launch of the first evacuated blood collection system in the world to be made out of PET plastic and include a safety cap. The VACUETTE® brand name stands for progress, quality, functionality and safety in medical specimen collection.
The customer can choose from a broad range of different tube types and accessories that coordinate optimally, and adapt the system for his/her individual requirements or the situation.
The tube range covers all the requirements for routine procedures in the modern day laboratory as well as the needs in specialist laboratories. Even for the most specific laboratory diagnostics, there are tubes with appropriate additives in the various colour codes and in different dimensions. The tube holder and venipuncture systems can be selected depending on the patient’s individual vein conditions as well as the varying safety requirements.
Safety as Top Priority
Injuries from contaminated puncture instruments are a significant source of danger for people working in the healthcare sector; they are always top of the accident statistics in hospitals. The VACUETTE® Safety Products were developed with the aim of reducing this risk to a minimum; to give the whole system a three-fold safety advantage for medical staff: venipuncture safety, user
safety due to improved hygiene when manually opening the tube and analysis results. By using these safety products, needlestick injuries and thus occupational diseases such as HIV or Hepatitis B and C can be virtually eliminated. New developed products, for example the VACUETTE® QUICKSHIELD Safety Tube Holder or the VACUETTE® PREMIUM Tube with Safety Twist Cap, reduce the risk of injury or contamination to an absolute minimum and enable simple, efficient implementation of daily routine procedures.
Further emphases in Greiner Bio-One’s Preanalytics program are on automated erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) instruments for use in laboratories and doctors’ offices, the MiniCollect® Capillary Blood Collection system for blood collection on babies and infants as well as product systems for urine and saliva collection.
Success on Emerging Markets
In spite of the continuing problematic economic situation, Greiner Bio-One is still in a position to push on long-lasting growth. After the concern’s turnover grew in 2008 by more than 6% to 256 million euros, the current positive figures for the ongoing business year confirm continued strong development. Greiner Bio-One CEO Franz Konrad has clear targets for the company: “Our aim is healthy, sustainable growth. Long-term success perspectives are always at the heart of our deliberations. With this as a strategic basis, expansion of global market shares will be intensified with the focus not just on expansion of the production locations but largely on emerging markets, where future market development is expected to be particularly dynamic”.
The increasing internationalisation of Greiner Bio-One means that besides being able to reduce delivery times, customers all over the world will be provided with intensive customer care and service. In October 2008 a VACUETTE® production location was opened in Amata Nakorn, Thailand. This July another new work in Rainbach, Upper Austria will be officially opened.
These strategic investments are another step towards the vision defined by Greiner Bio-One. Franz Konrad: “We have gone from being a supplier of specimen collection systems and laboratory goods, to being a provider of innovative system and safety solutions, and at the same time technology and competence partner for the pharmaceutical and diagnostics industry and biotechnology.
| Family Company as Global Player Greiner Bio-One International AG is a Global Player with around 1400 employees, 19 subsidiaries and numerous distribution partners in more than 100 countries. There are production locations in Austria, Germany, Hungary, USA, Brazil and Thailand. The public limited company belongs 100% to the Greiner family, with the head office in Kremsmünster, Austria. The historical roots go right back to the 19th century, 1868 to be precise, when Carl Albert Greiner began to establish himself as a regional producer of corks. Over the years, the Greiner Group became established as Global Player in the plastics branch. In 2001 the laboratory technology sector separated from the Greiner Holding AG and became the independent company, Greiner Bio-One International AG. |