{
  "id": 75949,
  "title": "Saxony-Anhalt: \"Sitting on the sofa and complaining, anyone can do that!\"",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/03/sachsen-anhalt-sich-aufs-sofa-setzen-und-meckern-das-kann-jeder",
  "topic": "business",
  "section": "Business",
  "published": "2026-08-03T07:55:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Handelsblatt",
    "slug": "handelsblatt",
    "url": "https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/dienstleister/sachsen-anhalt-wenn-wir-nicht-um-arbeit-hier-kaempfen-wer-tut-es-denn-sonst-01/100230207.html"
  },
  "original_language": "de",
  "account": "Men in grey suits are gathering in front of a glass case with a model of a factory site. They are the bosses of Sandoz, and Saxony-Anhalt's Prime Minister Sven Schulze (CDU) is also there. Even Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) has come to the Salutas Pharma site. They are supposed to pose for a photo here, in front of this model. But Grit Müller, wearing a sky-blue trouser suit and high, light-coloured shoes, seizes the opportunity that arises from this to do something else: she talks incessantly with the Chancellor. Grit Müller is the site manager and head of Salutas Pharma, a subsidiary of Hexal within the Swiss pharmaceutical manufacturer Sandoz. Now she is using the proximity to Merz, caused by the photo, to explain to him the hexagonal structure of the plant, which the Hexal founders built on the arable land of the municipality of Barleben after reunification. She also reports on the successful growth of the plant. And then Merz says a sentence that Müller is likely to like: \"That's huge!\" In fact, it is so huge that Salutas is one of the largest employers in Saxony-Anhalt. The company is located in the Ostfalen Technology Park (TPO), an area with 170 companies and almost 5,200 jobs. Alone, 1,400 people work at Salutas. This could already be a good enough reason for the Chancellor to visit. After all, he also insists on speaking with the employees on site. In addition, Barleben, along with Saxony-Anhalt, is located in the federal state where the AfD could become the strongest party for the first time in the state elections on September 6. This is also an important topic for Müller. But she has another mission. That Merz appreciates her plant is likely to please her especially. After all, Salutas is not a pharmaceutical company like Eli Lilly or Novo Nordisk, with whose drug innovations a Chancellor could boast. And compared to the large employers in Germany, 1,400 employees are not that many. What exactly leads the Chancellor here? What makes the plant so special? And what role does Grit Müller play? Salutas produces generics, i.e., cheaper imitators of drugs that have been on the market for a long time. In Germany. Where otherwise productions are outsourced to low-wage countries. Every fifth generic drug package comes from Barleben, every tenth patient in Germany is supplied from Salutas production. This makes the 10,000-inhabitant municipality the location of the largest generic drug production in the republic. Müller's message is correspondingly clear: Germany needs Salutas. And that here, in Saxony-Anhalt. She says this or something similar in panel discussions, in interviews or in press releases, as well as on LinkedIn. \"With an annual production of over eleven billion tablets, it makes a significant contribution to supply security in Germany and Europe,\" Salutas Pharma writes, for example, in the press release about the Chancellor's visit to the site. So that everyone, including the federal government, understands. Müller always feels like she has to fight for the site and its relevance. Already in 2024, she was annoyed in an interview: it couldn't be \"that I have to explain to a federal minister at the beginning of the energy crisis why our production must continue to run\". But the competition is great, not least from abroad. \"Works like the one in Barleben are fighting against an overpowering competition from China,\" says the Pro Generika association. \"Due to the cost pressure and massive subsidy policy from China, a large part of the production has been relocated there.\" Just this year, two Berlin plants of the generic drug manufacturer Aristo have closed. This shows how difficult it is to keep a plant economically viable in Germany, according to the association. In 2000, 59 percent of all generic drug active ingredients came from Europe, a commissioned study by Pro Generika shows. Only 20 percent came from China and India. This ratio has almost reversed 20 years later: only a third of all active ingredients come from Europe, 54 percent from China and India. Numbers that ensure Grit Müller is worried about her site. \"If you want to maintain and strengthen a production site in Europe, you must never rest on what has been achieved,\" Müller says. The woman behind the plant In the production hall of the plant, white tablets shoot through a grey tube into a metal container, about twice as large as a wheelbarrow. Metoprolol succinate tablets, a blood pressure reducer. Salutas produces 2.5 billion of these per year, says a production employee while looking at the plant. Previously, Grit Müller would have explained this. After all, she was still a production manager a few years ago. She has been site manager since 2021. And Müller lives the site. Müller has not only been with the company her whole working life, she also comes from the region. And therefore says about East Germany: \"When it comes to self-marketing, there is sometimes still a need for catching up in the east of the Federal Republic.\" As a child, she experienced reunification, had \"great opportunities\" but also \"great pressure to succeed\" that her parents felt after they moved from the prefabricated building to a single-family home and took out debt for the first time. After studying German, English and business administration in Magdeburg, Nottingham and Moscow, Müller initially wanted to start her career with an auditor. The contract was already signed. To bridge the time, she worked at the Barleben plant over the summer. Her mother already worked as a field sales representative for Hexal. After the summer job, the company offered her a trainee position - and Müller stayed. That Müller fulfills the job as site manager so well is also due to her roots.",
  "summary": "Salutas manager Grit Müller runs the largest generic drug location in Germany. She is supposed to defend domestic cheap drug production against China and India. But it's about much more.",
  "key_points": [
    "Sandoz executives visit Salutas Pharma in Barleben, Sachsen-Anhalt",
    "Chancellor Friedrich Merz admires Salutas' six-sided plant layout",
    "Salutas is Germany's largest generic medicine producer"
  ],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 2,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "Handelsblatt",
        "title": "Saxony-Anhalt: \"Sitting on the sofa and complaining, anyone can do that!\"",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/05/sachsen-anhalt-sich-aufs-sofa-setzen-und-meckern-das-kann-jeder",
        "published": "2026-08-05T07:09:00.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}