Richard Higgs
EUROPEAN PLASTICS NEWS
Published: February 24, 2014 11:23 am ET
Updated: February 24, 2014 11:26 am ET
German medical products manufacturer B. Braun Medical is investing more than 55 million euros ($75.5 million) on a project to expand its pharmaceuticals plant in Penang, Malaysia.
The Melsungen, Germany-based group launched the latest project of its Malaysian subsidiary B. Braun Medical Industries this month at a ground breaking ceremony at the Bayan Lepas Free Industrial Zone in Penang.
Increasing national and regional demand has led to the latest capacity extension of B. Braun's Penang Island facility with a boost to output of sterile infusion solutions in bags and plastic containers.
The Malaysian operation comprises six different manufacturing units with products including medical devices such as injection needles, sutures, catheters, I.V. solution administration sets and surgical blades and instruments.
B. Braun's Penang operation, employing 5,000, is one of the global group's largest industrial sites outside Europe. The group has already invested more than 385 million euros ($529 million) on the site. Expansion of the pharmaceuticals unit will lead to the creation of additional jobs for engineers and technicians, it said.
Last year the company completed and started production at a 13 million euro ($17.86 million) expansion at its disposable medical supplies plant at Gyöngyös in north eastern Hungary.
In June this year, the family owned group celebrates the 175th anniversary of its foundation as a humble pharmacy business in Melsungen in 1839. Today it employs 50,000 people at operations in 61 countries. | 
