On October 1, 2023, the Governing Mayor Kai Wegner on behalf of the Senate awarded the Order of Benefit of the State of Berlin to residents who’ve rendered excellent companies to town. The award ceremony occurred from 11 am within the Nice Corridor of the Pink Metropolis Corridor “Rotes Rathaus” throughout a ceremony.

Alexandra Knauer was honored for her achievements as a profitable and socially notably dedicated entrepreneur. Her firm, which has been manufacturing high-tech laboratory devices in Berlin for 62 years, had developed novel manufacturing tools for encapsulating the mRNA lively ingredient into lipid nanoparticles for vaccine manufacturing firstly of the Corona pandemic in a really quick time.

With out this “packaging” within the microscopically small lipid nanoparticles, the delicate lively ingredient can’t attain the physique cells undamaged and can be ineffective. Few individuals know that it’s because of a technical improvement from Berlin-Zehlendorf that BioNTech/Pfizer’s Corona vaccine may very well be produced on such a big scale so rapidly. The brand new BioNTech vaccine can also be produced utilizing KNAUER’s tools.

As well as, the laudatory speech highlighted the truth that the Berlin entrepreneur has been socially concerned in an honorary capability on a number of boards of trustees and committees for a few years. Since 2020, for instance, she has additionally been lively within the “Ladies in Enterprise” initiative of the German Federal Ministry for Financial Affairs and Vitality. The initiative’s aim is to encourage extra girls to take the skilled step into self-employment.

In Alexandra Knauer’s firm, sustainability and equal alternatives are essential. At KNAUER, for instance, there has not been a big gender pay hole for a number of years: firstly of 2023, girls there even earned slightly below 1.4 p.c greater than males. For comparability, in Germany the common wage for ladies continues to be 18 p.c beneath that of males (unadjusted pay hole). The recipe for achievement additionally contains cooperation with many Berlin or regional companions similar to suppliers and analysis establishments. KNAUER gadgets are „Made in Berlin“.

“I’m very honored by this accolade! I’m extremely grateful to my nice workforce of 190 workers and my co-managing director for his or her dedication. Everybody within the workforce is necessary and contributes to the truth that we’re very revolutionary and might ship high efficiency,” 

Alexandra Knauer

The circle of former honorees contains, for instance, humorist Loriot, creator and director Freya Klier, coronary heart specialist Roland Hetzer, actress, singer and creator Hildegard Knef, Holocaust survivor, journalist and creator Inge Deutschkron, artist and ‘tree patron’ Ben Wagin, actress and director Katharina Thalbach, songwriter Reinhard Mey or Albrecht Broemme, former THW and metropolis hearth chief and coordinator answerable for Berlin’s corona vaccination facilities and for the lodging of Ukraine refugees.

The day on which the order is awarded every year on October 1 has symbolic significance for Berlin, as a result of it was on this date in 1950 that Berlin’s first structure got here into power. In addition to Alexandra Knauer, eleven different personalities had been honored on Sunday.

The family-owned firm KNAUER Wissenschaftliche Geräte GmbH develops and manufactures high-tech laboratory devices, for instance HPLC methods, that can be utilized to carry out analyses or to purify for instance, lively pharmaceutical elements. The gross sales community extends over 70 nations. Alexandra Knauer, who manages the corporate along with Carsten Losch, attaches nice significance to company accountability each in the direction of the staff and in the direction of the setting and society. Extra details about KNAUER at: www.knauer.web