Merck says making progress on meeting surge in lab gear demand

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Germany's Merck KGaA, which is investing to catch up with ballooning demand for its biotech manufacturing supplies, said the order book in COVID-19 related lab gear was still growing faster than sales but it was getting a better handle on the situation.

"We are really very well trained at this time to deal with the supply chain pressures... We have made tremendous progresses, however, our order book is still growing faster than our sales," Chief Executive Belen Garijo told journalists after releasing full quarterly results.

"We are getting the situation back on track but it’s going to take a little bit of time to get each and every site up to the necessary targets to be able to fulfil 100% of customer demand," she said, adding that only single-use bioreactor equipment and filters were affected.

(Reporting by Ludwig Burger)