Boehringer Ingelheim has expanded its biopharmaceutical development and manufacturing capabilities at its cell culture and microbial sites in Biberach, Germany and in Vienna, Austria. These expansions will enhance state-of-the art cell line development with the proprietary BI-HEX® high expression system and microbial strain as well as process development services for the contract manufacturing business. The investment of approximately 17 million Euros included the expansion of Boehringer Ingelheim's current GMP (good manufacturing practice) cell banking, process science, cell line development and quality laboratories, all equipped with the latest technologies.
With this new set up Boehringer Ingelheim can offer highly competitive services including it’s newly established 'Lean to Clinic' program for monoclonal antibody projects, in which drug substance may be delivered after only 13 months for clinical studies. In the microbial business the increased ressources will strengthen Boehringer Ingelheim’s proprietary technologies like the high yield and high purity pDNA platform and will also support the technology collaborations with Pfenex Inc on the Pseudomonas technology and with VTU Technology on the Pichia expression technology.
"The expansion has been taylor-suited to fully meet our customer demands in cell culture and microbial process science, especially for our rapidly expanding pre-clinical project portfolio with biotech companies", commented Dr. Dorothee Ambrosius, Senior Vice President Biopharmaceuticals Global Process Science at Boehringer Ingelheim. "This is another milestone within our contract manufacturing strategy securing technology leadership and towards increased flexibility and customer orientation."
About Boehringer Ingelheim
The Boehringer Ingelheim group is one of the world's 20 leading pharmaceutical companies. Headquartered in Ingelheim, Germany, it operates globally with 145 affiliates in 50 countries and more than 42,000 employees. Since its foundation in 1885, the family-owned company has been committed for more than 125 years to researching, developing, manufacturing and marketing novel products of high therapeutic value for human and veterinary medicine. Today, Boehringer Ingelheim is one of the world's leading companies for contract development and manufacture of biopharmaceuticals. All types of services from mammalian cell line or microbial strain development to final drug production can be delivered within a one-stop-shop concept. Boehringer Ingelheim delivers services for pre-clinical development up to global market supply with a strong commitment to its customers at its global manufacturing facilities for mammalian cell culture and microbial fermentation. Boehringer Ingelheim has brought 19 molecules to market and has many years of experience in multiple molecule classes such as monoclonal antibodies, recombinant proteins, interferons, enzymes, fusion molecules and plasmid DNA. Furthermore, high-titer platform technologies for new antibody mimetic formats such as scaffold proteins and antibody fragments are available for the manufacture of customer products.