From left to right: Elvira Halberkorn – Zwönitz Office of Public Order; Jens Rausendorf – Production Manager at RAUMEDIC AG Zwönitz; Andy Kehrer, representing the Mayor’s Office of the City of Zwönitz
July 1, 2016 marked a memorable event for RAUMEDIC from exactly twenty years before, as the RAUMEDIC AG facility in Zwönitz celebrated its 20th anniversary. But the history of this medical engineering factory started well before that.
The roots of RAUMEDIC AG’s factory in Zwönitz go back much further into the past. As early as the 1980s, the nationally owned company Messgerätewerk facility in Zwönitz was developing the first pressure measurement probes. After the German reunification, polymer specialist REHAU AG + Co took over the business in 1996 to complement its medical division. Spun off from REHAU in 2004, the factory in Zwönitz continued to operate under the new name RAUMEDIC AG. With its headquarters in Helmbrechts (Bavaria), the company employs over 680 workers worldwide, with a focus on extrusion, injection molding and assembly of products for the medical and pharmaceutical industry.
“In 1996, we had three engineers and a three-person production team,” recalls Jens Rausendorf, manager of the production department. Today, the Zwönitz location is home to 26 employees who develop and produce high-precision pressure measurement systems, primarily for neurosurgery applications.
With its NEUROVENT intracranial pressure probe, RAUMEDIC is the market leader in German clinics – and the catheters produced in Zwönitz are used all around the world. From Europe and the United States to Australia and Brazil, neurosurgeons worldwide rely on measurement technology “Made by RAUMEDIC.”
RAUMEDIC Neurovent: Medical engineering with microchip technology – Made in Zwönitz
These highly complex catheters are hand-assembled by experienced employees with a delicate touch and a strong commitment to quality. It takes two weeks to complete all of the steps that go into the production of a microchip catheter. In clinics, the catheters are mainly used in cases of severe head injury or hydrocephalus. If pressure in the brain becomes too elevated due to swelling, permanent damage can result. RAUMEDIC catheters measure this pressure and make it easier for the doctor to provide treatment.
Andy Kehrer and Elvira Haberkorn from the Zwönitz municipal government, and Anne Walter from the local weekly Zwönitzer Wochenblatt, were very impressed by their short tour of the factory. “We had no idea that such innovative products were being manufactured right here in Zwönitz,” they exclaimed during their tour. They shared their congratulations on the anniversary and wished RAUMEDIC many more years of success.
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