Boehringer Ingelheim (BI) has announced plans to invest EUR 7 billion ($7.6 billion) in production technologies and its supply network and EUR 25 billion ($27 billion) in research and development over the next five years. The company expects to launch 15 new human health products by 2025. BI outlined its growth plans as part of its 2021 financial results.

BI says it plans to spend EUR 7 billion ($7.6 billion) over the next five years (as reported on April 5, 2022) in production technologies and its supply network, including further expansion of biopharmaceutical production capacities. In 2021, the company invested EUR 968 million ($1.05 billion) in tangible fixed assets, which included a large-scale biomanufacturing facility in Vienna, Austria, which was inaugurated in October 2021, and a new development center for biopharmaceuticals in Biberach, Germany. The new biomanufacturing facility in Vienna is for both BI internal products and the company’s contract biomanufacturing business. In 2021, its contract biomanufacturing business posted net sales of EUR 917 million ($994 million).

In R&D, BI spent EUR 4.1 billion ($4.4 billion) in 2021, up 11.7% from 2020, and which was a record-level of R&D investment in the company’s history. In 2021, R&D investments in human health products was EUR 3.7 billion ($4.0 billion) and EUR 416 million ($451 million) in animal health. The company says it plans to invest EUR 25 billion ($27 billion) in R&D over the next five years.

The company’s R&D pipeline in Human Pharma comprises more than 100 clinical and preclinical projects. The company says that based on the progress of later-stage projects, the pipeline has the potential to deliver up to 15 new product launches through 2025.

BI’s Human Pharma business is the largest piece of the company and accounted for 74% of its total net sales in 2021. The Human Pharma business posted net sales of EUR 15.3 billion ($16.6 billion) in 2021, an increase of 8.4% year over year. Jardiance (empagliflozin), an anti-diabetic medicine co-developed with Eli Lilly and Company, was BI’s biggest revenue contributor in the company’s Human Pharma business in 2021 with net sales of EUR 3.9 billion ($4.2 billion). Ofev (nintedanib), a drug for treating idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and certain other pulmonary diseases, was the company’s second-strongest revenue contributor with net sales of EUR 2.5 billion ($2.7 billion).

Overall, BI recorded 2021 net sales of EUR 20.6 billion ($22.4 billion), a 5.4% increase compared to 2020. Adjusted for currency effects, net sales rose by 7.5%.

Source: Boehringer Ingelheim