Customers take center stage. Sometimes a single drop leads to a breakthrough. Yet until reaching this point, a company has to trust in its own abilities – and in those of its partners and customers, too.
Lab Solutions, Bioscience, Process Solutions – can these three areas be served equally well? Certainly, says Merck Millipore CEO Yates, “By thinking critically and having the courage to listen to customers.”
- A conversation with Robert Yates
- At a glance
- Lab Water
- BioMonitoring
- Lab Essentials
- BioPharm Process Solutions
- Pharm Chemicals Solutions
- Life Science
- Discovery and Development Solutions
A conversation with Robert Yates
Three business units, one global team, one clear objective: Enabling science for life science researchers and manufacturers with tools that increase the efficiency and impact of their work.
“This calls for trusting relationships with our partners,” says Merck Millipore CEO Robert Yates. And the courage to listen to customers.
Robert Yates President and CEO of Merck Millipore
“Critical thinking is vital in our business.”
Customers are our compass
According to Yates, “Critical thinking is vital in our business.” That’s what helps the President and CEO of Merck Millipore most in his work. Far more than hierarchical structures, and far more than entrenched routines. “I’m trying to reduce bureaucratic processes to an absolute minimum,” says Yates. “In exchange, I expect my teams to show leadership and accountability. That’s something I build and rely on.” This is the precondition for exploiting the full potential of the life science tools division and generating above-average growth in the future as well.
He says this without any hyperbole and with clear determination to walk the talk by managing, acting and making decisions in this way. After all, Yates and his teams operate in a constantly changing environment where clients are always upfront and center. “We align ourselves with clients, they are our compass and indicate the direction in which we can work together to enable science, offering beneficial solutions.“
For example, in the Bioscience business unit these are life science researchers, who study complex biological systems in order to discover new therapies and develop better medicines. “We are of course also following the trend toward automation and miniaturization in research,” Yates says. “We’ve got to meet this trend while fulfilling the sustainability requirements of our customers at the same time.” A customer once summed this up as follows: “To us, it’s crucial for Merck Millipore to understand the complexity of our work.”
And it’s crucial for Merck to reduce this complexity while increasing efficiency across all three of its business units. The continuous further development of the EZ-product family, for example valves and filtration heads with quick-fit connections, is one example of how the Lab Solutions business unit is helping to meet growing requirements in laboratory work. Or the Clarisolve® depth filters offered by the Process Solutions business unit for single-stage clarification of pretreated feed streams. With Clarisolve®, customers can now take full advantage of high-density pretreated feed streams and improve overall process economics.
“To address these challenges, Merck relies on direct customer feedback,” says Professor Albert Jeltsch, Director of the Institute of Biochemistry at the University of Stuttgart, which uses Merck’s Muse™ Cell Analyzer, among others. “This enables us to determine in real time the cell concentration, apoptosis as well as the cell cycle with even greater accuracy and precision,” says Jeltsch.
Lab Solutions, Bioscience, Process Solutions – can all three areas be served equally well at the same time? “Yes of course,” says Yates, “with plenty of imagination and innovative power.” As Yates explains, this will ensure that Merck Millipore’s “innovation pipeline is always well-stocked.”
Merck Millipore produces not only tools, but also laboratory materials for the life science industry.
The cell analyzer Muse™ is used by the University of Stuttgart, among others.
At a glance
Merck Millipore
The Merck Millipore division offers solutions that help scientists to conduct life science research more easily, efficiently and economically. Merck Millipore is one of the leading suppliers of tools for the life science industry.
The business units
Lab Solutions
Process Solutions
Bioscience
A reliable partner: Process Solutions offers more than 400 pharmaceutical raw materials worldwide.
Business figures
Sales
€ 2,627,506,602
EBITDA pre
€ 642,821,732
Sales by region
Microcosmos
EZ-Product Family
The EZ-product family is designed to facilitate microbiology workflows in quality assurance and quality control laboratories. The EZ-Pak® Dispenser Curve launched in 2013 makes membrane dispensing faster and easier and completes the product line.
01 Identification
Identify unmet client needs and workflow pain points in close collaboration with the client and define requirements.
02 Development
Innovation team develops solution approaches. Alpha-testing: prototype is tested in a simulated environment in close cooperation with the client.
03 Verification
Back to the application lab: optimization based on results from alpha-testing. Beta-testing of optimized prototype with customer optimization based on feedback. Final comprehensive testing of product requirements.
04 Product Launch
In combination, the products of the EZ-family provide optimal performance and streamline the bioburden analysis workflow.