Producer
Merck KGaA (MilliporeSigma in US)
German multinational producing the Hi-Flow Plus nitrocellulose membrane — one of the two industry-standard LFA membranes globally. Received a €121M US DoD/HHS contract to build the first US lateral flow membrane facility in Sheboygan, WI (2022) to reduce concentration risk in Cork, Ireland.
6
Inputs supplied
2
Goods downstream
3
Facilities
0
Stories
What they make
6 inputs Merck KGaA (MilliporeSigma in US) supplies
Click an input to see every good that depends on it, every country that produces it, and every other company in the supply chain.
manufactured
Liquid Crystals for LCD Displays →
manufactured
Nitrocellulose (NC) Membrane for Lateral Flow →
chemical
Fluorescent Reporter Dyes & Oligonucleotide Probes →
manufactured
Glass Fiber Conjugate Pads & Borosilicate Fiber Membranes →
pharmaceutical
Carbon-13 (C-13) Stable Isotope (Medical Diagnostics & Pharmaceutical) →
chemical
Ionizable Lipids for LNP Delivery (ALC-0315 / SM-102 type) →
Where it shows up
Goods downstream
Essential goods that depend on something Merck KGaA (MilliporeSigma in US) makes, pick one to see the full supply chain.
Where they make it
3 facilities
Merck MilliporeSigma Cork Facility →
IEmanufacturing
Primary Hi-Flow Plus nitrocellulose membrane production (two casting lines). Pre-2022 essentially the only significant Hi-Flow production capacity globally, creating geographic concentration risk.
Merck MilliporeSigma Sheboygan, WI Facility →
USmanufacturing
Groundbreaking July 2022. First US lateral flow membrane production facility. Funded by €121M US DoD/HHS contract. Adds >50% capacity to existing Cork lines. Directly responds to COVID-revealed concentration risk.
MilliporeSigma/Isotec -- Miamisburg, Ohio (Stable Isotopes) →
USMiamisburg, Montgomery County, Ohio, USA · chemical_plant
Merck KGaA (MilliporeSigma) stable isotope production at former Isotec facility; Miamisburg, Ohio. Isotec was one of the original US commercial stable isotope companies, now part of Sigma-Aldrich/MilliporeSigma. Produces 13C bulk gases, 13C-labeled solvents, and stable isotope standards for pharmaceutical and analytical applications.
What else they do
Business segments
The company's full revenue map, where this supply-chain role fits within their broader business.
Life Science (MilliporeSigma — US Brand)
42%Healthcare (Pharma — Small Relative to Life Science)
22%Electronics / Performance Materials (Liquid Crystals & OLED)
28%Surface Solutions & Specialty Chemicals
8%
Intelligence
What's known
Sourced claims about this company's role in supply chains, chokepoints, concentration, incidents, dual-use connections.
Did you know2023
Merck KGaA (Darmstadt, Germany) — known in the US as MilliporeSigma (lab chemicals and COVID test membranes) and as a pharmaceutical company — controls approximately 70% of global liquid crystal supply for LCD flat-panel displays. Every LCD television, laptop screen, desktop monitor, and industrial display uses liquid crystal molecules to control light transmission; Merck KGaA's Liquid Crystals division (part of Electronics/Performance Materials) supplies those molecules to LCD panel manufacturers in Korea (Samsung, LG), Japan (Sharp, Japan Display), and China (BOE, CSOT). A 1668-founded German pharmacy is the invisible supplier of display technology in virtually every flat-panel screen sold globally. Merck's liquid crystal dominance is a natural monopoly derived from 50+ years of proprietary mixture formulation expertise — each new display generation requires new custom LC mixtures developed by Merck's chemists.
Merck KGaA ↗Capacity2021
In 2022, the US Department of Defense and HHS awarded Merck KGaA (MilliporeSigma) a €121M contract to build the first US domestic lateral flow assay membrane manufacturing facility in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. The contract was motivated by COVID-19 supply chain analysis: virtually all nitrocellulose membrane for US rapid tests was produced at Merck's Carrigtwohill, County Cork, Ireland facility — a single European site producing critical US public health infrastructure. A production disruption at Cork would have crippled US COVID, flu, and RSV testing capacity. The Sheboygan facility is designed to produce Merck's Hi-Flow Plus NC membrane for the US government strategic stockpile and commercial test manufacturers — the first new US membrane manufacturing investment in decades, prompted entirely by supply chain vulnerability recognition from the COVID pandemic.
MilliporeSigma (Merck KGaA) ↗