In 1989, the brothers and entre­pre­neurs Jan G. Smith and Leif Smith founded ABIGO Med­ical AB, with a focus on deliv­ering inno­v­a­tive methods of infec­tion con­trol and to reduce the use of antibi­otics. ABIGO is a com­pany with a sub­stan­tial inter­na­tional pres­ence and a con­tin­uing strong growth. Its prod­ucts are sold in 70 coun­tries, with a cur­rent turnover of about 30 mil­lion euros. The company’s work­force con­sists of more than 130 employees.

„Sor­bact^® is one of ABIGO’s key prod­ucts and offers fan­tastic oppor­tu­ni­ties, par­tic­u­larly in view of the global chal­lenges of infec­tions and antimi­cro­bial resis­tance,” Jan G. Smith, owner and CEO at ABIGO Med­ical explains. Sor­bact® is a wound dressing that pre­vents infec­tions and helps to reduce the need of antibi­otics, hence less­ening the risk of spreading multi-resis­tant bac­teria. Excel­lent results in inter­na­tional studies com­bined with many years of clin­ical expe­ri­ence, has led to a sharp increase in the use of Sor­bact^®.

In order to meet the strong demand, ABIGO has invested 3 mil­lion euros in an expan­sion of the pro­duc­tion facility, now 5,000 sqm and inau­gu­rated in November 2016. The strong and con­tin­uous growth requires close part­ner­ship in all aspects of the product process. Harro Höfliger is a close com­panion to ABIGO for the pro­duc­tion of the Sor­bact^® dressing. “Together we have grown over the past few years and we have estab­lished a lot of trust,” says Hartmut Thier, leader of the Harro Höfliger web con­verting team.

ABIGO’s Plant & Pro­duc­tion Director Fredrik Sten­bäcker affirms the good coop­er­a­tion between the com­pa­nies: “At ABIGO we pro­mote a down-to-earth cor­po­rate cul­ture without the hectic frenzy of con­tin­u­ously focusing on quar­terly per­for­mance. We believe that people are buying from people. That’s why we highly appre­ciate that coop­er­a­tion with the Harro Höfliger team always take place on a pro­fes­sional and pleasant basis. And we feel out­standing loy­alty.” This is a close col­lab­o­ra­tion that pays off for both sides. The first web con­verting machine type PMK in 2010 was fol­lowed by a second line in 2012. The third machine for the Asker­sund site, near Gothen­burg, has already been ordered.

“The PMK’s mod­ular machine con­cept offers per­fect pre­req­ui­sites for a flex­ible and opti­mized sequence of core processes such as coating, sealing, cut­ting, punching and pack­aging,” Fredrik Sten­bäcker explains. Format changeovers or machine options with dif­ferent num­bers of com­po­nents can be easily imple­mented due to the PMK’s mod­ular design.

According to Jan and Leif Smith, the fight against infec­tions and antibi­otic resis­tance is of utmost impor­tance. It is an incred­ibly large area and there are a mul­ti­tude of appli­ca­tions for the inno­va­tions owned by ABIGO. “We have barely scratched the sur­face,” Leif Smith says.

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Photos: Lab of Ralf Reski, Cre­ativeCom­mons BY-SA 3.0, Helmar Lünig