B. Braun is a German medical and pharmaceutical corporation, headquartered in Melsungen near Kassel. The history of the company began in 1839 when one of the ancestors of the current owners founded a pharmacy and subsequently a manufacturing plant. Since then, B. Braun has been continuously developing and expanding its product portfolio. Currently, the company is a supplier of medical equipment and materials used in such areas of medicine as surgery, neurosurgery, orthopaedics, nephrology, urology, and cardiology. The corporation has plants and representative offices in 50 countries worldwide and employs over 63,000 staff.