Boehringer Ingelheim has a new vision for its production of solid meds and has started building a $100 million R&D and manufacturing facility in Germany to realize it.
The German drugmaker is investing €85 million in its Solids Launch facility in Ingelheim, Germany that will both develop and manufacture more complex tablets for global launches. Meanwhile, it has been moving production of what it calls “older, easier-to-manufacture drugs” to other sites worldwide since 2016.
The new facility, which is slated to be online in 2020, will have 75 employees working there.
The facility will incorporate new manufacturing methods, including continuous production and a contained production train to handle higher potent compounds. It also will have a flexible layout that allows for rearrangements of rooms and equipment to speed production starts, spokesman Matthias Michael Reinig said in an email.
“In Ingelheim, we are thoroughly committed to investing in technologies and processes with high added value. This means that we are not only establishing the centerpiece for global market launches of pharmaceutical innovations here, but also that we will continue to manufacture drugs that require highly complex production technologies,” explained Stefan Rinn, country manager for Germany.
The company is also incorporating into its new launch strategy the €34 million so-called “diabetes factory” it completed last year. Boehringer Ingelheim said beginning in 2020, the production of those drugs will be relocated to other countries like Mexico and Greece and the facility repurposed from the innovative drug launches.