Italian cardiovascular device company Sorin Group is broadening its footprint in Germany.
The company has expanded its Munich manufacturing facility to “accommodate growing worldwide demand for state-of-the-art cardiopulmonary technology,” according to a release from the company.
Sorin recently held an opening ceremony and formal dedication of the new facility, which included tours for officials, customers and employees.
The expansion will increase the size of the current facility by 25 percent to approximately 11,000 square meters (118,000 square feet), including offices, laboratories and training facilities. The manufacturing floor space extension will allow the production capacity of heart-lung machines (HLM) and auto-transfusion systems (ATS) to be significantly increased and it will enable the in-house manufacturing of heater-cooler systems.
The company’s Munich facility produces advanced cardiopulmonary systems, including hundreds of HLMs, ATS machines and blood-gas monitoring devices each year.
In addition to its German plant, Sorin Group operates facilities dedicated to cardiopulmonary bypass systems in Denver, Colo., and in Mirandola, Italy. In 2013, the company also started a manufacturing project in China to better serve the growing demands of the growing Chinese market.
“The expansion of our Munich manufacturing plant marks another milestone for Sorin Group as we focus on further strengthening our leadership in the cardiac surgery arena,” said Michel Darnaud, president Cardiac Surgery Business Unit. “The Munich expansion follows the recent delivery of our 10,000th heart- lung machine to Brigham and Women’s Hospital (in Boston, Mass.) earlier this year.”
HLMs help sustain a patient undergoing an open-heart surgery procedure, providing blood oxygenation and circulation (extracorporeal support) to the brain and major organs while the patient's heart and lungs are temporarily bypassed. Every year, more than 1.5 million patients worldwide suffer from cardiac disease requiring extracorporeal support from these systems.
ATS allows collection, processing and reinfusion of autologous blood during and after surgical interventions in many applications, including cardiac, orthopedic, vascular, obstetrics, trauma and others, as well as preoperative sequestration of whole blood components.
Sorin Group also offers HLM accessories, data management systems and disposable perfusion circuits as well as blood management systems, cannulae and other advanced cardiopulmonary products designed to enhance the exceptional results achieved by surgical teams.