In synch with success
Two companies who broke out in Adlershof now move into their own headquarters
Both began life as start-ups in Adlershof and are now, as medium-sized companies, moving into their own headquarters on the site. Music is important to both founders, not only in terms of business.
“Not the trombone. The French horn!” says Ulrich Reineke, correcting a common mix-up. For the co-founder and managing director of 3B Pharmaceuticals GmbH, the instrument became a lifelong passion early. He practiced daily, stayed on the ball, even as a teenager, and invested in private lessons with a French horn player from the Berlin Philharmonic, when he began as a newly enrolled biochemistry student at Freie Universität Berlin. He successfully passed the entrance examination at the predecessor of today’s Berlin University of the Arts (UdK). From then on, he studied both biochemistry and the French horn, later performing as a freelance musician with the Staatskapelle Berlin orchestra to help fund his studies. Many would have considered that a full career. Not Reineke. Seventeen years ago, together with colleagues from Berlin, Bern and Basel, he founded 3B Pharmaceuticals. Since then, they have transformed the company from a start-up into an internationally established specialist in theranostics, employing more than 80 highly trained staff. The client list reads like a who's who of the global pharmaceutical industry.
“I don't play an instrument,” laughs Mohamad Abo Ras, CEO of Berliner Nanotest und Design GmbH. He arrived in Germany from Syria in 2001 at the age of 22. Supported by his parents and a series of part-time jobs, he worked his way through university, completing a master's degree before joining the Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration (IZM) as a research associate. He went on to earn his doctorate and later helped establish the spin-off company Nanotest, initially serving as technical managing director. When the business hit a rough spot a few years ago, Abo Ras took over the leadership and successfully turned the company around. Today, Nanotest employs almost 50 highly qualified staff and supplies leading semiconductor companies across the US, Asia and Europe. Alongside building the business, Abo Ras has built other great things: a family with four children, all of nursery or school age. “Running the company, family life, and spending time with friends keep me more than busy,” he says.
By any measure, both men have already achieved a great deal. Recently, however, they both took on another major challenge. Their growing businesses needed more space.
“We looked at several existing properties for rent,” Reineke explains. However, adapting them to meet 3B Pharmaceuticals' specific requirements would have cost almost as much as constructing a purpose-built facility designed from the outset to meet the necessary safety standards. The company develops peptides capable of transporting short-lived radioactive isotopes directly into tumours. These radiopharmaceuticals serve as markers in diagnostic imaging, enabling doctors to detect metastatic tumours throughout the body. They also play a role in cancer treatment by delivering ionising radiation directly inside the tumour, destroying cancer cells from within. Working with these substances requires strict compliance with high-level safety regulations. “Luckily, we were able to purchase a suitable plot from WISTA on Hermann-Dorner-Allee,” says Reineke gladly. “That means we can remain part of the Adlershof success story.”
Likewise, Abo Ras has designed and built a new headquarters for Nanotest in Adlershof. He also feels lucky to be able to stay based at the site. The proximity to the airport, the universities and skilled professionals is essential for a company operating on a global scale. Almost two-thirds of Nanotest's most recent annual turnover of 8.5 mn. euros was generated in the US, with the remainder coming from customers across Asia and Europe. Their customers need the company’s specialised chips for their development and production lines. The semiconductor testing chips enable hardware-in-the-loop simulations of the thermal behaviour of advanced microchips. At a time when hundreds of billions of transistors are packed onto an area no larger than a fingernail and circuit structures measure only a few nanometres, thermal management has become a critical engineering challenge. “As power densities continue to increase, our work becomes ever more complex and demanding,” says Abo Ras. He expects the company to continue growing. Whether the same applies to his family, he prefers not to say.
Peter Trechow for Adlershof Journal