There are many players in the industry who are household names; the companies who are masters in their own areas or who are able to provide their services to almost all corners of the pharmaceutical industry. Brandi Schuster interviewed Dr. Matthias Grehl, Vice President of Umicore prior to the show.

What market trends have been keeping you busy this year?

M. Grehl: The recovery of the economy allowed Umicore to pursue its goal of sustainable value creation with concentrating its activities into four focused business groups: catalysis, energy materials, performance materials and recycling.
Precious metals chemistry (PMC) strengthened its presence in the life science and chemical industries with scaling up new precious-metal based APIs and catalysts such as Ruthenium-based olefin metathesis catalysts, used in the synthesis of key pharmaceutical intermediates or in the synthesis of chemicals out of renewables, or such as platinum based APIs, known as powerful anti-cancer drugs. We also expanded into solar with scaling up Ruthenium dyes for DSSC, the technology developed by Dr. Michael Grätzel at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), as well as into the electronic industry with launching high purity precious metal based chemicals.

Experts say that the recession is coming to an end? How are things looking on your end?

M. Grehl: Umicore's performance in the first half of 2010 improved substantially compared to the first half of 2009, and was also well up compared to the second half of 2009. This was indeed due to the recovery in the main markets of the advanced materials and precious metals products and catalysts businesses, coupled with the positive impact of cost reduction measures.
PMC also benefits from the return of the steady growth in markets such as automotive and specialty chemical industries as well as from its expansion into the new markets and technologies.

What has been the biggest challenge for your company over the last year?

M. Grehl: These were actually two: Maintaining the growth during the crisis and keeping on track with the construction of our new metal-based API plant in Argentina. Thanks to the diversity and the fidelity of our customers, we kept growing in 2009; and thanks to the dedication of our team we can now support the internationalization of our Pt-API customer base with an Argentinean production facility fulfilling the latest quality standards and regulations.