EMD Chemicals Unveils New Technical Center For Chromatography

Gibbstown, NJ - EMD Chemicals Inc. announced today the unveiling of its new Chromatography Technical Center (CTC) in Gibbstown, NJ. The state-of-the-art center will be equipped with chromatography columns ranging from developmental to 100 liter production scale. It is staffed by expert personnel with an aggregate of more than 50 years experience in process chromatography.

"While our customers are well-experienced in developing their separation methods, packing chromatography resins properly in large production columns can be intimidating, especially when done for the first time. This in turn can prevent a company from fully capturing the benefits of a resin and operating at maximum efficiency," says Dan Freymeyer, Director of Sales & Technical Support for EMD's Life Science Solutions business. "Led by Dr. Tessa Chao, Technical & Development Manager and Grant Espie, Technical Marketing Manager, our center will provide an intimate learning environment where customers can participate in lectures as well as hands-on interactive sessions on the use of Fractogel(R) and Fractoprep(R) media. We are able to offer training classes on column packing and one-on-one demonstrations, all complementary to our current technical support and troubleshooting service. This center is essential to provide emerging companies as well as our established customers in the growing biotherapeutic market with real-time instruction on the use of our resins."

The new center which complements the company's existing technical center for chromatography in Darmstadt, Germany is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2005. Standard training sessions will be offered regularly. Custom-designed programs will be available to respond to individual customer scheduling and content requirements. In addition to offering training at the technical center, EMD will continue to provide training at customer locations.

As part of Merck KGaA in North America, EMD Chemicals represents over 100 years of experience in traditional and bio-chromatography. Fractogel(R) and Fractoprep(R) polymeric media based on Merck KGaA's proprietary tentacle technology are relied upon throughout the world to purify bio-molecules.

SOURCE: EMD Chemicals