Boehringer Ingelheim significantly expands its supply center for China

Boehringer Ingelheim announced today that the company intends to invest 70 million Euro to expand its manufacturing plant in the Zhangjiang High-Tech Park in Shanghai into a strategically important supply center for China. The goal of this project is to bring more health to more patients and to continuously improve Boehringer Ingelheim’s product competitiveness and enlarge its market share.

With the expansion until end of 2013, the number of employees will rise significantly from 240 today to 400, the production capacity will be doubled.

“We want to expand our Zhangjiang plant, primarily to meet the demand for more health in China. It also shows our continuous commitment to China and specifically Shanghai”, said Professor Dr Wolfram Carius, responsible for the Corporate Board Division Operations and Human Resources. “Our vision is to transform our Shanghai plant into a launch site in Boehringer Ingelheim’s global Operations network.”

The project intends to build a modular and lean manufacturing facility on the current production site. It will be able to produce marketed products and new pipeline products. The objective to have world-class production through a lean manufacturing approach will be supported by the optimisation of material flow and by our highly qualified employees.

In the first phase, which will be completed by the end of December 2013, a packaging center for ampoules and solids and a new automatic warehouse will be constructed. Furthermore, a new laboratory building for development activities will be set up on the site. In the second phase, to be concluded until the end of 2014, the existing solids manufacturing facility will be revamped and upgraded with new technologies.

The pharmaceutical industry is currently in the focus of Shanghai’s economic strategy. Boehringer Ingelheim China’s strategy is in tune with the economic structure transformation advocated by the government and will lead the company into a new phase of development. “We are committed to meeting the growing demand of China’s pharmaceutical market and to bringing more health to patients and their families”, said David Preston, Chief Executive Officer of Boehringer Ingelheim China.

Since it entered the Chinese market in 1994, Boehringer Ingelheim has expanded its product range to cover respiratory, cardiovascular, central nervous system and other important therapeutic areas. In the forthcoming years, the company will continue to expand, including the therapeutic areas diabetes, oncology and stroke prevention.