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Laboratory of the vaccine manufacturer Biontech in Mainz
Photo: Stefan Albrecht / dpa
SPIEGEL:
Your company supplies important consumables for Covid-19 test laboratories.
After the first wave in March, the corona tests were massively expanded.
Since then there has been a lack of materials such as pipette tips, which her company also manufactures.
How come?
To person
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Eva van Pelt, born in 1965, has been Co-CEO of Eppendorf AG, based in Hamburg, since 2019.
Eppendorf develops products for use in research laboratories in the pharmaceutical, biotech, chemical and food industries.
Photo: Eppendorf
Eva van Pelt:
Eppendorf supplies around 300 test laboratories in Germany directly or indirectly with consumables.
There are also pharmaceutical and life science companies involved in the development and production of vaccines.
The demand for pipette tips has increased explosively and within a short period of time has become so great that we had to increase our capacities by 30 percent this year.
We have introduced a three-shift model and work 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Nevertheless, our capacities are still not sufficient for the demand.
SPIEGEL:
So will there still be a shortage of material?
Van Pelt:
Yes.
We have therefore been trying to find solutions together with our customers since the beginning of the year and have created an allocation model for this.
This means that if a laboratory orders ten million pipette tips, we will initially only deliver five million and at a later date the remaining five million.
So we try to meet all inquiries as far as possible and keep the laboratories running.
Our main concern is the supply chain.
For example, important suppliers from northern Italy were the first to be locked down in the spring, which had a direct impact on other production areas.
We had to knock on new suppliers and compete with companies from other industries.
A system relevance certificate would have helped us to ensure the supply chains.
We did not get this from the federal government.
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