DANBURY, Conn., July 28, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ATMI, Inc. (Nasdaq:ATMI) announced yesterday the completion of a two-year, multi-million dollar expansion project for its Bloomington, Minnesota manufacturing facility. With this achievement, the company establishes its North American hub for the production, marketing, and development of its Integrity(TM) single-use technologies for biopharmaceutical and other life science applications.
Expansion of the Bloomington site, which will continue to host ATMI’s manufacturing operations for high-purity liners and specialty chemical dispense systems for the semiconductor and flat panel display industries, was unveiled yesterday at an official ribbon-cutting ceremony. The added capabilities double the company’s worldwide capacity for the fabrication of ATMI(R) LifeSciences’ Integrity(TM) product line of 2-D and 3-D transfer, storage, mixing, and bioreactor vessels, while adding supply chain contingency through a dual-manufacturing capability shared with the existing bioprocess manufacturing plant in Hoegaarden, Belgium. The ribbon-cutting ceremony, which featured a VIP tour of the new facilities, was attended by Bloomington Mayor Gene Winstead, and ATMI customers, partners, and employees.
New jobs will be created, representing a variety of roles ranging from assembly and testing to laboratory supervision, manufacturing engineering, and product engineering. Additional space remains that would double the production capacity to meet increasing demand.
“We have developed this world-class facility in direct response to the growing needs of our North American customers for additional single-use bioprocess vessel manufacturing capacity. Creating a copy-exact of our Belgian facility for change management and supply chain security reasons also helped us to quickly replicate cGMP procedures,” commented Doug Neugold, ATMI Chief Executive Officer and President. “With advanced vessel design, 100% integrity testing, and extensive quality controls, we continue to apply our experience in semiconductor manufacturing to our life science business.”
Featuring a 2,500 sq. ft. Class 1000 cleanroom with Class 100 work areas, the additions also include a new demonstration and applications laboratory and a separate product development laboratory. In addition, the Bloomington expansion is ISO 9001 certified and cGMP compliant, and it extends operating procedures and quality testing practices based on those in place at the Hoegaarden facility. The Bloomington production area houses state-of-the-art custom-film welding equipment for vessel chamber production and the attachment of fitments and tubing. There is dedicated space to perform 100% integrity testing of each fully assembled vessel, including bio burden, weld strength, and particle contamination monitoring.
“Increasing our manufacturing footprint addresses the rapidly increasing demands of the biopharmaceutical marketplace for single-use vessels applications in the field of storage, mixing, and bioreactors,” said Mario Philips, Senior Vice President and General Manager ATMI LifeSciences. “It is also part of our global strategic supply program to meet the highest standards with respect to quality, delivery, and contingency, as our customers move our single-use technologies into their HVM cGMP environments.”
ATMI is a leading provider of ultra-clean film products and single-use systems and packaging for both the life science and semiconductor/display industries. ATMI LifeSciences is known for innovative products including its PadReactor(TM) and Nucleo(R) bioreactors, its broad range of single-use mixing systems, and its media storage and transfer vessels--all of which are manufactured using the same Integrity TK8 film to minimize validation and integration time and costs. For further information log onto www.atmi.com
About ATMI
ATMI, Inc. provides specialty semiconductor materials, leading-edge materials development science, and high-purity materials handling and delivery solutions designed to increase process efficiencies for the worldwide semiconductor, flat panel, and life sciences industries. For more information, please visit http://www.atmi.com.
The ATMI, Inc. logo is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=5254
About ATMI LifeSciences
ATMI LifeSciences is a leader in single-use mixing, storage, and bioreactor technology, fluoropolymer-based products, and custom-engineered, flexible packaging solutions. The business’s fundamental knowledge of polymers, specially selected resins, and its clean room manufacturing experience combine to help drive optimum performance in critical disposable process operations. For more information, please visit www.atmi-lifesciences.com.
(C) 2010 ATMI, Inc. All rights reserved. ATMI, the ATMI logo, Integrity and PadReactor are trademarks or registered trademarks of ATMI, Inc., in the United States, other countries or both. Nucleo is a trademark of ATMI, Inc. and Pierre Guerin in the United States, other countries, or both.
Statements contained herein that relate to ATMI’s future performance, including, without limitation, statements with respect to ATMI’s anticipated results of operations or level of business for 2010 or any other future period, are forward-looking statements within the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are based on current expectations only and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, including, but not limited to, changes in semiconductor industry growth (including, without limitation, wafer starts) or ATMI’s markets; competition, problems, or delays developing, commercializing and delivering new products; problems or delays in integrating acquired operations and businesses; uncertainty in the credit and financial markets; and other factors described in ATMI’s Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2009, and other subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Such risks and uncertainties may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in our forward-looking statements. ATMI undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements.
CONTACT: ATMI Investor Relations & Corporate Communications Dean Hamilton, Director 203.207.9349 203.794.1100 x4202 dhamilton@atmi.com
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