Boehringer Ingelheim has announced a $217-million investment to upgrade and expand its Fremont, California manufacturing facility. This investment will bring nearly 300 positions.

The site was recently awarded $25.5 million in two separate tax credits from the state of California. This expansion will enable the company to increase its manufacturing capacity by one-third.

The Fremont facility focuses on manufacturing medicines for immunology, rheumatology, and oncology and is part of the company’s biomanufacturing network, which also includes sites in Biberach, Germany and Vienna, Austria.

Earlier this year, the company inaugurated a commercial production site for biopharmaceuticals in Zhang Jiang Hi-tech Park in Shanghai, China. The site, with first-phase investment of more than EUR 70 million ($78 million), uses mammalian cell-culture technology and will support the company’s contract manufacturing business. The facility will operate for clinical and commercial supply on a 2000-L single-use bioreactor scale. It is designed to flexibly add additional 2000-L single-use bioreactors and fill/finish capabilities.

In late 2015, the company announced an investment of EUR 500 million ($537 million) in biopharmaceutical production at its site in Vienna, Austria, through the addition of a new large-scale biopharmaceutical production facility for active ingredients manufactured using cell cultures. The biopharmaceutical production plant is scheduled to go into operation by 2021.

Source: Boehringer Ingelheim