Mission:

ChiroBlock GmbH is an independent, research based chemical company.

Our business model is to provide chemistry related services to customers who need otherwise commercially not available research chemicals, external expertise in synthetic chemistry or who seek temporarily additional capacities for chemical research & synthesis. With its focus on sophisticated, mostly chiral molecules and with its restriction to lab-scale - ChiroBlock is the right outsourcing partner for research departments requiring new compounds for their projects. We do not claim to be experts in the entire field of chemistry. However, our experienced staff, our state-of-the-art facilities, the clearly defined scale and scope of our tasks, our strong ties with/to the local chemistry & biotech cluster and especially our proprietary internal service orientated processes guarantee satisfying results for problems we promised to solve.

Our customers can choose between our exclusive services and non-exclusive research results from our own in-house projects. Non-exclusive compounds are available in sample quantities but we do not manufacture them on larger scale. They are being made and sold by partners of us. This is a result of our strategy not to be engaged in the ‚catalogue business’ of fine chemicals.

You will not find bulk products at ChiroBlock but research quantities of new reagents and knowledge how to make them.
You will not get standardized solutions from ChiroBlock, but but problems individually solved.
You will not receive a catalogue from us but ... Custom tailored chemicals...this is our business.

Background:

ChiroBlock was founded by three PhD chemists right after their graduation early in 1999.
It was an answer to the changes, the chemistry related industries have been faced since the late 1980ies.

On the one hand, both the traditional corporate structures covering the entire value creating chain from R&D to production & marketing and complex horizontally integrated technology frameworks came under pressure in the worldwide process of increasing efficiency by decreasing complexity. This process lead to the disclosure of many former central chemistry research units/departments, especially in the pharmaceutical companies. Disregarding these developments, the demand for new chemical entities, for new research compounds, for chemical products and services remained high and became even more brisk when the numbers of new drugs did not meet the expectations in the late 1990ies.

At the same time, many new companies in the fields of biotechnology, new materials, nano technology etc. were founded. All of them are based on new molecules, on transformed matter, hence on chemistry. But most of these companies did not and do not regard chemical in-house research as being strategically important to them. Chemical synthesis is too complex on its own and it is itself a vividly developing branch of science and industry. To keep up with progress in chemistry at a company which pursues another business in the first hand, would neither be effcient nor successful in the long term.

An answer to these developments of increasing demand for chemistry with less and less in-house facilities/recources is „outsourcing“. This does not only comprise ‚chemical production’ the market of which has been served by so called Contract Manufacturing Organisations (CMO) for some decades. During the last 5-8 years, chemistry outsourcing has also been extended to research with ‚chemical Contract Research Organisations’ (cCRO) as suppliers.

ChiroBlock with its focus on sophisticated research compounds, especially on ‚chiral chemistry’ regards itself as one of the European pioneers in this cCRO market. We are by far not the largest supplier, neither by turnover nor by headcount, but we are convinced to belong to the very few cCROs which fully comply with the market needs, created to exactly meet the specific requirements of this science based service.

In contrast to many of our competitors, we do not see any synergies between lab-scale research & synthesis on the one side and chemical production or a catalogue & product business on the other side. So, since the beginning in 1999, ChiroBlock’s policy has been not to act as ‚one-stop-shop’ or as a product company offering idle capacities for custom synthesis.

Contract research & custom synthesis, i.e. providing services and not selling (standard) products, is the only and successful business field of ChiroBlock which is complemented by own in-house research projects.

This company construction, together with state-of-the-art equipment, the permanent improvement of internal processes, the access to and processing of world-wide chemistry knowledge and the continuous education schemes for employees have been resulting in a growing number of satisfied customers and, hence, in a steady - but still managable - growth of ChiroBlock since its foundation.

Location:

In 2001 we moved from Merseburg to Wolfen. Both towns are situated in the traditional chemistry region Leipzig-Halle in the heart of Germany. Due to its rich natural resources and central location in the middle of Europe it was one of the ‚cradles' of chemical industry in Germany about 130 years ago. Names, brands and towns like BUNA, Wolfen, LEUNA, Schkopau, ORWO, AGFA, Bitterfeld and Böhlen reflect the variety and importance of chemistry in this area. The production of synthetic rubber and films for colour photography are perhaps the best-known examples of the creativity of former chemist generations. The demand for chemical products and the autarkic policy of first Hitler's Germany and second the communist G.D.R. led to an enormous growth of the chemical companies and plants with hundreds of thousands of employees at the end of the 1980ies.

Environmental pollution of vast areas was the result of this development. During the last decade, uneconomical factories running old-fashioned chemical processes were closed down. New, innovative companies are being attracted to make use of the excellent infrastructure. The people's knowledge of and attitude towards chemistry remains an outstanding feature of this region. ChiroBlock is committed to this history and started at the ‚mitz' (Merseburg Centre of Innovation and Technology) in the conurbation Halle-Leipzig. Now, the ‚Technology Centre of Chemistry Bitterfeld – Wolfen’ is the home of our company.