In December 2011, NNE Pharmaplan decided to open a new office in Belgium, accommodating the demand of several of their existing customers. The office is located in Rhode-Saint-Genèse, the southern Brussels area, which is a pharmaceutical hub for vaccine and biotech. CHEManager Europe talked to Stefan Berg, CVP Central Europe, and Yavuz Baykara, General Manager Belgium, about the reasons for opening an office as well as the current business development of the Belgium site.

CHEManager Europe: Mr. Berg, in an interview with you in CHEManager Europe 9/2011 we talked about the reorganization of NNE Pharmaplan, that the group has now a regional organizational structure consisting of five regions. Last year, you opened a new office in Belgium. What were the main drivers for you to open a new office there?

S. Berg: NNE Pharmaplan has worked for customers in Belgium for several years. We executed the projects from our other offices in Europe, like from Denmark or Germany. Our strategy is to be close to our customers and to serve them locally. Therefore, we establish NNE Pharmaplan offices in pharmaceutical clusters - like in Brussels. We intend to proceed in this way in the future and to open one new office each year.

Mr. Baykara, how has the business developed in the last year, and how is the feedback from your customers?

Y. Baykara: We are satisfied how our business has developed in Belgium since we have opened our office in Brussels last year. Since the beginning of the year, we have been able to grow our team to 15 people. We are working on interesting projects and are following interesting leads at the moment. Our customers responded with very positive feedback on the office opening in Belgium. They can see the benefits of working with a local team and at the same time have the possibility to access a large pool of specialists through our other offices in Europe and worldwide. Also when it comes to work for a customer in different countries, they can always rely on that the projects are executed with the same approach, procedures and standards. At the time being we are working for several focus customers in Belgium. For one of them we implemented an additional project in Switzerland before.

How do you see the development of NNE Pharmaplan in Belgium in the next years?

S. Berg/Y. Baykara: The Belgian market gives us a lot of room for development. The high-tech market in Belgium mainly producing liquid steriles needs special know-how and emphasis on the high demands on the facilities. With our comprehensive experience and expertise in this field, we can help our customers to achieve the best result in their projects.
The dynamic development of the biotech sector requests smaller and more flexible biotech facilities based on single-use technology. To address these requirements, NNE Pharmaplan has established a standard biotech facility concept called "Bio on Demand".

S. Berg/Y. Baykara: Also in regard to the future requirements on automation and IT towards a paperless production for the pharmaceutical industry in Belgium, we see a good potential to support our customers to achieve future-oriented automation strategies.
Our target is to grow our number of employees significantly, to have approx. 100 engineers, scientists and GMP specialists locally in Belgium. Our goal is to be the market leader for life science engineering services in Belgium.