Pharmaceuticals

Boehringer Ingelheim to invest $267 million in biologics development centre

Boehringer Ingelheim (BI) plans to invest €230 million in a new biologicals development centre at the company’s R&D site in Biberach, Germany.

“The biologicals development centre is another key building block supporting the company’s long-term strategy for increasing the pipeline’s share of biologicals. This is particularly driven by two of our core areas, immune oncology and immunology,” said Dr Fridtjof Traulsen, Corporate Senior Vice President Development at BI, in a June 22, 2018 company statement. “The share of new biological entities in Boehringer Ingelheim’s research pipeline has been consistently increasing over the past few years and has now reached forty percent.”

The biologicals development centre will integrate biologicals analytical and process development as well as manufacturing for clinical studies into one unit while at the same time increasing development capacity. Following a staggered launch beginning in 2020, the new building will house 500 employees.

The biologicals development centre is the latest in a number of recent investments to further increase BI’s mammalian cell-culture capabilities, including a large-scale biopharmaceuticals facility in Vienna, Austria, a new biopharmaceuticals facility in Shanghai, China, and the expansion of existing large-scale biopharmaceutical capacities in Fremont, California.

Some recently developed biopharmaceuticals from the company include a humanized antibody fragment that selectively reverts the effect of an oral anticoagulant prior to urgent procedures / emergency surgery or in uncontrolled bleeding, an interleukin-36 receptor antibody being tested to treat certain forms of psoriasis (generalized pustular psoriasis and palmoplantar pustulosis) and ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, and several antibodies under investigation for difficult-to-treat cancers.