Sanner, a German medical device CDMO and healthcare packaging specialist that has been on an expansion tear the last few years, named an interim chief executive to replace Johannis Willem van Vliet, Ph.D.
Sanner Chairman Heino Lennartz has been named interim CEO until Stefan Verheyden takes over the chief executive role sometime in the fall, the company said in an Aug. 8 press release. Van Vliet is expected to “leave the company shortly,” it said.
Verheyden has more than three decades experience working in the pharmaceutical and biopharma sectors, with an extensive background in primary packaging. Most recently, he served as global vice president of sales, pharma and biopharma injectables at medication and drug delivery devices company Gerresheimer.
“We are delighted to welcome Mr. Verheyden to the Sanner Group as experienced CEO,” Lennartz said in the release. “His many years of expertise and reputation in the industry will be a great asset to us in both the packaging and CDMO sectors.”
News of the big change in the executive suite comes just weeks after the company announced it was expanding its U.S. presence with the opening of a new 60,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Greensboro, North Carolina.
The company had previously entered the U.S. when it acquired medtech CDMO Gilero last September. That acquisition followed Sanner’s purchase of another medtech company, Springboard Pro, in early 2024.
While Sanner can trace its roots back more than a century, it only established its medical device CDMO division in 2019. The company now operates facilities in the U.S., Germany, France and China, and it plans to construct a second production facility in China.
Sanner supplies products to more than 150 countries and employs more than 800 people worldwide, according to the company's release. Besides devices, the company works with diagnostics, pharmaceuticals and consumer healthcare products.