A successful series-produced model

The history of the modern dialysis machine started in the 1970s with a question: How to turn a highly specialized treatment, available to only a few people at the time, into a series-produced lifesaver? The question became a vision. And the vision became a success story that today has 8,000 parts. That’s how many components are inside a modern Fresenius Medical Care dialysis machine.

The very first model became the world’s bestselling dialysis machine of its time. Since then, the Company has expanded its lead with its follow-up models: In recent years, Fresenius Medical Care has sold around five times more dialysis machines worldwide than its nearest competitor. From the very beginning, the prime objective in developing dialysis machines was to make therapy safe, gentle and affordable for as many patients as possible. When Fresenius Medical Care started serial production of the first devices in 1979, the treatment was available to fewer than 10,000 patients worldwide. More than two million people in the world now undergo dialysis treatment; approximately one in two are treated with a product developed and produced by Fresenius Medical Care.

Fresenius Medical Care’s production sites have also progressed steadily. Whereas the Schweinfurt factory produced precisely 36 machines in 1979, it now makes several tens of thousands. This is thanks to a large number of fully automated production steps, for example in the manufacture of highly sensitive solenoid valves, a key component of the hydraulic circuit. Fresenius Medical Care now not only produces dialysis machines in Schweinfurt, but also specifically for the North American market at its sister factory in Concord, California.