After the big coup to lure the globally successful industrial valve manufacturer Samson with 2000 employees from Frankfurt to Offenbach to the innovation campus that was still under construction, the second big coup succeeded in January when the biotech shooting star Biospring decided to have one right next to Samson build production.

Less than a year later, the Frankfurt-based biotech confirmed on Friday that it had acquired an additional 30,000 square meters on the innovation campus to set up additional production facilities there.

Once all production facilities have been set up, around 1,500 almost all highly qualified men and women will work there, according to the information.

You will make synthetic oligonucleotides.

To put it very simply, these are artificial gene fragments

Jochen Remert

Airport editor and correspondent Rhein-Main-Süd.

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The company's long-term goal is to create the world's largest capacity for manufacturing active ingredients based on oligonucleotides in Offenbach.

The founders Sylvia Wojczewski and the founder Hüseyin Aygün, who both received their doctorates in chemistry from the University of Frankfurt, want to invest a three-digit million amount in the long term, as they explained.

The two founded the company in 1997 with six employees at the time.

The house now has almost 500 employees.

The rapid growth earned Biospring the title of Hessen Champion in 2021.

Felix Schwenke (SPD), Mayor of Offenbach and Head of Economic Affairs, emphasized the importance of Biospring's decision for Offenbach.

This will make the city an important production site for a very successful company in the biotech industry.

Schwenke also sees the company's most recent decision in favor of Offenbach as confirmation of the strategy he and his colleagues from the city council were pursuing when founding the innovation campus: This envisages Offenbach, which is still heavily burdened by the decline of old industries, with the settlement of modern companies different sectors to make it a prosperous city again.

Biospring currently produces in Frankfurt-Fechenheim

Managing Director Wojczewski said she was very happy that with this expansion space in Offenbach, Biospring could fully exploit the great growth potential that is available in the coming years.

"For Biospring, the purchase of this industrial site is a big step in shaping our future," she continued.

In Frankfurt, where the company is currently producing in Fechenheim, it was not possible to acquire such an area as Offenbach could offer.

With the enormous expansion options, Biospring can increase its production capacities up to thirty times the current capacities in the long term, explained Managing Director Aygün.

This could in future be used to produce “highly innovative active ingredients on a multi-ton scale” in Offenbach.

This is also a strong sign of innovative and future-oriented active ingredient production in Germany, Aygün continued.

The construction and commissioning of the production facilities on the newly acquired property is currently scheduled for 2026 and 2027.

The first plant on the approximately 10,000 square meters acquired in January is scheduled to start production in 2024.

Sylvia Wojczewski praised "the excellent support from the city of Offenbach" and emphasized the fast processes.

The Offenbach treasurer Martin Wilhelm (SPD) was very pleased with the prospect of significant trade tax revenue.

At the same time, he warned that this extremely positive development for Offenbach would not pay off in the very near future.

Head of Planning Paul-Gerhard Weiß (FDP) emphasized that the strategy, which was essentially promoted by Lord Mayor Schwenke, laid very important foundations for a substantially better future for Offenbach.

"Prospects that this city hasn't had for decades," said Weiss.

The city is now working "at full speed" on the development plan for the innovation campus.

According to Schwenke, with the sale of the 30,000 square meter site, all of the large properties on the campus have been sold.

More than 18 hectares of the 26 hectares that were available for commercial use on the site that had been unused for many years have now been sold, explained Daniela Martha, Managing Director of Inno Innovationscampus GmbH, a real estate company of Stadtwerke Offenbach.

The marketing successes on the campus are also remarkable because it was only in 2019, after years of negotiations, that the city succeeded in acquiring the area from the Swiss specialty chemicals producer Clariant for 6.95 million euros, which at the time was the largest unused commercial area in the entire Rhine Main area was considered.