Most companies focus on individual products and specific industries. Only a few companies offer the complete range of equipment. Because of the large investment in manufacturing plants, there are relatively few suppliers of centrifuges. These companies are international in focus and export a large portion of total production. By contrast, most thickening and clarifying equipment is built within the purchasing country.
Many local companies compete with international suppliers.
The growth of crossflow membrane technology in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry is a combination of growth in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals and a growth in the use of crossflow membranes within existing plants and processes. RO, UF, and MF technologies are used for a variety of purposes in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. They are used to purify the water used in the processes and they are used to purify wastewater either for discharge to waterways or for reclamation. One of the largest uses of crossflow membrane technology is in process separations. Millipore does a large business in systems to separate proteins from mammalian cells.