Peer Schatz is a master of acquisitions. When he started off as the head of finance at the biotech firm Qiagen, the staff was 30-strong. Then he went on a buying spree, swallowing 30 firms in all.

Germany's biggest biotech firm now has 2,800 employees worldwide. Peer Schatz is feared -- even in the biotech sector where mergers and acquisitions are not unusual. Schatz is not primarily interested in cutting costs. His goal is to acquire knowledge – and speed up research outcomes. The firm based in Hilden near the western German city of Düsseldorf makes a test to diagnose most infectious diseases, as Carmen Meyer discovered. But the firm's blockbuster at the moment is a rapid test for the human papillomavirus -- which can cause cervical cancer. The product was developed not by Qiagen, but by one of its takeovers, the US firm Digene.