Dr. Susanne Leonhartsberger has taken over as president of Wacker Biosolutions as of April 1, 2020. She succeeds Gerhard Schmid, who retired on March 31, 2020. Dr. Leonhartsberger’s last position was managing director of Wacker Biotech GmbH and, as head of Wacker’s biopharma business line, she was responsible for the biologics business.
 
Dr. Leonhartsberger studied biology at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, where she wrote her doctorate on the gene regulation activities and biochemistry of bacteria. She first joined Roche Diagnostics, where she worked in protein production. In 2001, she moved to Wacker’s corporate R&D department. After various positions at Wacker Biotech’s site in Jena and at the corporate development department in Munich, she moved to Adrian, MI in 2014. There, she headed Wacker Biosolutions’ North and Central America business until 2017. On her return to Germany, she became managing director of Wacker Biotech GmbH and, as head of the biopharma business line, was responsible for biologics contract-manufacturing at Wacker.
 
As of April 1, Guido Seidel, currently second managing director of Wacker Biotech GmbH, will succeed Dr. Leonhartsberger as head of the biopharma line and first managing director of Wacker Biotech GmbH. Effective the same date, Melanie Käsmarker becomes second managing director of Wacker Biotech GmbH. Currently, Ms. Käsmarker heads the global finance and administration unit for the biopharma business line and, at the same time, is site manager at Wacker Biotech’s site in Halle. Wacker Biotech is a wholly-owned Wacker subsidiary.