The most important products of the ibidi company are inconspicuous, roughly finger-long plastic cassettes.
With their help, heart attacks are to be prevented and cancer to be cured.
Graefelfing - It's warm, a cozy 37 ° Celsius, to be precise.
The air humidity is 97, the CO2 content five percent.
The cells feel right at home.
They particularly like the floor of their dwelling: Pleasant polymer, specially tailored to cell needs.
Not as cold and forbidding as the glass on which you usually have to live.
In-vitro research needs natural conditions
"Cells don't behave in normal Petri dishes as they do in their natural environment," explains Valentin Kahl, co-founder and co-managing director of ibidi GmbH, "that's why we create conditions for them like those in the human body." Because the natural behavior of the cells is irreplaceable for them Medical research: "We want to know how a cancerous tumor metastasizes or why arteries become calcified," explains Kahl.
The medium-sized company from Graefelfing supplies the equipment for this research: "Our most popular product is the slide with eight chambers, of which we sell around 20,000 per week," says the ibidi boss.
These include temperature controllers, gas mixers and mini incubators that provide the cells with the perfect living conditions.
The star of the structure, however, is the plastic itself: it is not only cell-friendly, but also absolutely transparent under the microscope.
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Gas mixer, temperature control and incubator simulate the human body.
© Robert Brouczek
Local supply chains prevented disaster
Decades of research are reflected in over 100 patents, and the products are exported to more than 40 countries. In addition to high-tech Petri dishes for medical experiments, this also includes machines that simulate human blood circulation, for example. With their products, which are in demand around the world, ibidi has only ever been uphill since it was founded in 2001 - until Corona came along.
“In January 2020 we started to fill our warehouse with plastic granulate and electronic components,” explains Kahl. At the same time, the Graefelfinger set up a warehouse in the USA for the important overseas market - as a buffer. "The scientists in the research company are used to the fact that the goods ordered arrive within a day," explains Valentin Kahl. Because biological experiments cannot be stopped if the material suddenly runs out. "We want to give our customers - the scientists - the assurance that we will always deliver reliably."
The delivery times could only be maintained through local supply chains: "80 percent of our suppliers are in Germany, most of them in Bavaria," says.
Bald.
Nevertheless, the company went on short-time work: "In April we had an 80 percent drop in sales, then the existential fear came because we didn't even know whether we were getting short-time work benefits." But the short-time work came and ibidi was able to process the remaining deliveries: "Everyone went from Cologne A UPS plane to the USA at 9:09 p.m. “, remembers Kahl.
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Ibidi co-founder Roman Zantl
© Robert Brouczek
Growth through customer proximity
With its reliable deliveries, ibidi was also able to outperform its competitors during the crisis: "We were on short-time work in summer 2020, but in September we returned to the previous year's level and from then on we achieved six percent growth." For Kahl, this is primarily due to close customer contact : “People can always call us and get in touch with a qualified biologist.” Thanks to the feedback from the application, the products can be continuously improved.
For this year, the company and its US subsidiary are expecting joint sales of between ten and twelve million euros.
For their successful order processing, ibidi was awarded the Bavarian Export Prize on November 17th.
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Ibidi co-founder Valentin Kahl
© Robert Brouczek
Valentin Kahl is not worried about the future: “In materials research, we have a ten-year lead over the competition.” While the basic plastic has remained almost unchanged for 20 years, Kahl wants to further optimize surface finishing.
Immuno-oncology is an important future area: "We want to help understand how the immune system can recognize and destroy cancer cells."
